Anglicans United & Latimer Press

Most of this session was devoted to documents produced by the Common Cause Partnership. This group is made up of different jurisdictions that have agreed to work together in mission and ministry, knowing that they are stronger together than any one jurisdiction is alone. ....Continue reading, "ACN Monday afternoon session post by Cherie Wetzel"

The members now include the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), the Anglican Province of America (APA), the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), The Anglican Communion in Canada (ACIC), the American Anglican Council, The Anglican Communion Network, The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), The Anglican Essentials Federation in Canada (AEF) and Forward in Faith, North America.

Three years ago, this was a loose association of bishops. Now it has bylaws, and Articles of Partnership. The Common Cause has produced a theological statement of purpose and practice and they have established a “vetting” process for new jurisdictions to join them. I thought you would be interested in knowing a little about these principle players in Common Cause. The following bishops introduced their jurisdictions this afternoon.

The Rt. Rev. David Bena, retired Suffragan bishop of Albany NY:
“I’m with CANA now. A year ago, we didn’t exist. Martyn Minns was consecrated in Nigeria less than a year ago. Now we are 40 parishes strong. 15 are ex-patriot Nigerian congregations. Our first council is Nov 1-3 in Northern VA. All are invited to come and be our special guests. “

The Rt. Rev. Don Harvey, Anglican Network in Canada:
“The Anglican Church of Canada held their recent Synod and I want to tell you some very specific things. The Anglican Church of Canada did not ratify the Windsor Report. They passed a motion to ratify a report of the Windsor Report. The Windsor Report was overwhelmingly defeated. Then they decided that same-sex blessings are not in conflict with core doctrines. But then bishops defeated local option of performing same sex marriages by 2 votes in the House of Bishops.
“This was followed by some bishops who said they would do them anyway. Several bishops said they agreed in principle, but their dioceses would not tolerate the change so they abstained. The next Synod is in 2010 and they are looking at changing the marriage canon to change “one man and one woman” to persons.
“We were encouraged by Global South Steering Committee report. Parishes are now waiting between 3-4 years for confirmation. Common Cause can change that in Canada.”

Bishop Richard Boyce Anglican Province of America, Diocese of the West:
“The Anglican Province of America goes back to late 60’s. [Those involved with ECUSA left over women’s ordination.] In 1991 we came together to merge with another jurisdiction, the Anglican Church of America. That merger held together 2.5 years and came apart when one bishop departed. Walter Grundorf was elected Presiding Bishop. Walter and I created the missionary district of the West in 1998 with l parish. Now I have 21 parishes with 2 missions coming in soon. In 1997 we started merger talks with the Reformed Episcopal Church, which is on hold right now due to our heavy involvement with Common Cause and the rapidly shifting status within the Communion. Now we hope to see the new Common Cause ecclesiastical structure come to fruition soon. Bishop Grundorf and I have been working on this for so long and are thankful for the progress made.”

Bp. Ray Sutton, Ecumenical Bishop and Suffragan of the Reformed Episcopal Church’s diocese of Mid-America:
“I serve with our Presiding Bishop, Leonard Riches and Bp. Royal Grote, the Bishop of diocese of Mid-America. The REC began in 1873 when 1/3 of clergy in TEC split. Over next 20 years, some parishes went back into TEC because they wanted to become one family again. That almost happened 1939 with the TEC Bishop of Eau Claire. His commission concluded positively on REC orders [consecrations of bishops we in line of Apostolic Succession and ordination of priests was “catholic” and valid] and proposed that Anglicanism could have two “lungs” HOB for REC and HOB for TEC. This decision and the lengthy papers attached were sent on Dec 7, 1941. Most archbishops and bishops never received that letter as America entered World War II.
“ After the war, the spirit had changed in both PECUSA and REC. The REC had two mindsets: sizeable number of clergy and bishops wanted to return to TEC; another group determined we needed to stay small and pure. There was no further dialog until late 1980’s. I was appointed Ecumenical Officer in 1989 worked with Ed Salmon. (Bishop of South Carolina) Shortly before 2003 GC, we were very explicit with TEC that if they did approve a practicing homosexual the dialog would be destroyed. I worked 14 years for this and it was a very sad day for me when it happened.
“The REC today has regained its original vision. We have 140 parishes with new church plants about every 6 weeks. And our church plants are not from disaffected Episcopalians. Evangelicals have taken the last 40 years to recover “catholic” practice.
“We have three Seminaries. Our Faculty has to sign an oath of conformity every year that they will not teach anything contrary to Holy Scripture and the faith “once delivered to the saints”. It is by the Grace of God that the REC never split and never had theological deviancy. Our oldest seminary is outside Philadelphia; Summerville SC is our2nd Seminary and it is predominantly African-American. In the late 1880’s, we took emancipated slaves that could not be ordained in TEC and trained them for ordination. [TEC canons did not allow for African-Americans to be ordained]. The commandant at the Citadel in Charleston walked with the candidates for ordination from Charleston to Philadelphia to make sure they would be ordained.
“Our third Seminary is in Houston. We have missions in Germany, South America, Russia, and Romania. We signed an official concordat with Nigeria in October 2004 after two bishops from the REC and Bishop Grundorf from the APA flew to Nigeria to meet directly with Archbishop Akinola. Once conversations broke down with TEC, we went directly to the Anglican Communion to establish concordats, aided by Martyn Minns and Todd Wetzel of Anglicans United. We are very excited about the future.”

These groups are alive and vibrant and excited to be working together. I wish I could share with each of you the privilege of meeting these people and hearing their stories. God is in this! He is very much in all of this. Peace to you and a good night’s sleep. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United in Fort Worth, Texas.

to the Fourth Annual Council at Bedford, Texas, 30th July, A.D.2007. I will save my flock, they shall no longer be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them and be their shepherd. [Ezekiel 34:22-23] David Anderson, John Guernsey, Andy Fairfield, Dave Roseberry, Martyn Minns, Dan Herzog, Alison Barfoot, Bill Cox, John Yates, Bill Attwood, Bill Cobb, Valarie Whitcomb, Dwight Duncan, Ron Jackson, Dave Bena, Bill Murdoch, Don Armstrong… What do these believers all have in common? …Great leaders, all. Yes, of course. One other thing, at least… Each was a priest or bishop (four bishops in fact) of the Episcopal Church at the Network Council one year ago… None is a leader of the Episcopal Church today. This seismic shift is the context in which we meet for this fourth Annual Council of the Anglican Communion Network. ....Continue reading, "ADDRESS by Bishop Bob Duncan, Opening session ACN annual meeting"

One of the young, creative staffers in our Pittsburgh office, Chad Whittaker (many of you will know his Dad, who teaches New Testament at Trinity Seminary), produced a brief video last Holy Week. It begins with words of a written prophecy I was handed at Hope and a Future (November 2005) and then it shifts to early April 2007. I want to show it to you now.

[Good Friday Video Clip]

Ever so many of us have found ourselves living through an extended Good Friday. None of us, of course, have lived through anything like our Lord’s excruciating and singular Passion, but the emotional and spiritual depths of the present season have, for most of us, been like few other seasons of our lives. I shall never forget the darkness of the days and weeks beginning with last March’s House of Bishops Meeting. It was during those days at and after that Camp Allen meeting that I truly came to grips with the unavoidable fact that the denominational Church that had – from infancy – raised me, captured me, formed me and ordained me, no longer had any room for me, or any like me. How bitter the rejection! How total my failure!

Yes, we are all at different places on the Calvary journey as concerns our ministries in the Episcopal Church. But I suspect I can speak for all when I say that where we are is not where we had hoped to be. God, in His wisdom, has not used us to reform the Episcopal Church, to bring it back to its historic role and identity as a reliable and mainstream way to be a Christian. Instead the Episcopal Church has embraced de-formation – stunning innovation in Faith and Order – rather than reformation.

In whatever way God’s call on our lives is to be lived out in the months and years ahead, few in this hall anticipate that the Episcopal Church will turn around in the last days before September 30th, or that the Episcopal Church has any intention of leaving room for those of us whose commitments to “the Faith once delivered” created the Anglican Communion Network and have sustained its vision and its witness. Because our sense of order is such that we have always sought to be Christian first and Episcopalian next , we find ourselves on this present Way of the Cross. Such is the increasing de-formation of the denomination whose priests and bishops, whose laity and deacons, we have so faithfully been, whose vision once upon a time was like the one we still hold, of a Church that is truly evangelical, truly catholic, and truly pentecostal. This is the context in which we meet for this fourth Annual Council of the Anglican Communion Network.

[Video Clip on Network Mission]

Our Work in This Council

Since the earliest days of the Network, God has given us a clear vision of who we are to be: A biblical, missionary and uniting presence in North America. At last year’s Annual Council in Pittsburgh we focused on the first of the three words of our oft-rehearsed vision: biblical. Our theme was “A Reformation of Behavior,” and we looked at personal holiness as a hallmark that must come to characterize our life as faithful North American Anglicans. At the first Bedford Council two years ago, we focused on the second of the three words of our vision: missionary. We gave most of our time at that meeting to our Anglican Global Mission Partners and to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund, and we accepted a special partnership with the Diocese of Singapore for evangelization of some of the most unreached areas on the globe. This year our work in Council – Bedford II, if you will – has much the same focus as our very first Council at Plano, three and a half years ago. We focus on the third of the three words of the vision our God gave us from the beginning: uniting. Much of the work of this Fourth Annual Council focuses on our call to unity with other orthodox fragments – virtually all of whom were once, like ourselves, mainstream Episcopalians. Proposals are before us to formalize, to ratify, a series of relationships that have come to be known as the Common Cause Partnership.

Three decades of fracture and disintegration characterized the life of orthodox Anglicans up until the Plano Council of January, 2004. None who were present at that organizing Council will ever forget the unity that permeated the decisions of that assembly. Every article of the Charter was unanimously approved. None of us had any expectation that anything like that would be possible. It was all God-given and God-breathed. None will forget the moment when a respectful way forward on the ordination of women emerged – surely the high-point of God’s grace in that Council – and we stood to sing the Doxology.

The charism God bestowed on us in that Plano Council has not departed. Thanks be to God! It has, of course, been sorely tried from time to time, not least in the crisis of Good Friday. But the charism has not been just for us. (God’s gifts never are “just for us.”) Confident that it was central to the vision of the Network – and deeply moved by the blessings of the Council that chartered the Network and encouraged by my Episcopal colleague Ed Salmon – I invited conversations with other jurisdictional and organizational leaders beginning in March of 2004. In June of 2004, six leaders pledged, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, “to make common cause for a biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America.” Initially six in the United States, Common Cause now has ten Partners in the U.S. and Canada. Five leadership roundtables have met and a first-ever Council of Bishops has been called. Key documents have been developed between the partners. Most of the partners have already approved the documents. Now it is our turn. The proposals do not yield jurisdictional autonomy, but they move us into more intentional federation. They move us closer to the longed-for day of a biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America, to the kind of “new ecclesiastical structure” called for by the Primates of the Global South, and yearned for by the faithful Anglicans of this continent.

Last summer the Pittsburgh Council had a first look at the Theological Statement of the Common Cause Partnership. Here at Bedford II the Steering Committee has placed that document and the Articles of the Common Cause Partnership before us for ratification. I heartily endorse these documents. They are not perfect, but they do take the next step. It has been the particular privilege and challenge of your Moderator to serve as Chair of the Common Cause Partnership since the beginning. A Common Cause Roundtable V in March the partners asked me to continue in that role, and I agreed to do so, with God’s help.

The Articles we are being asked to approve create a federation. None of our jurisdictional autonomy is ceded. The Primates of the Anglican Communion have asked the American Episcopal Church to make an answer concerning the Windsor Report and the Dromantine Communique. What the Common Cause Partnership does together is some part of this response. The Episcopal Church is walking apart. We propose to walk together. Little better communicates our message, and the reality that there is a recognizable and uniting partnership of mainstream Anglicans in North America, than the actions we are being asked to take.

In this context a word about the Windsor Bishops Coalition also seems appropriate. Again, in fulfillment of the Network’s vision, I asked Ed Salmon, after last year’s Network Council, to do what he could on the Network’s behalf to build a larger coalition of Episcopal Bishops, in hopes that the Episcopal Church might be turned back at the eleventh hour. During this past year, the Network Bishops have done everything we could to work with a broader Windsor Coalition within the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. In order not to abandon the wider coalition in its one last stand, the Network Bishops have agreed to take part in the upcoming meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury and members of the Primates Steering Committee and Anglican Consultative Council. We do so, some of us at least, without any implied recognition of or submission to the American primate, without any diminishment of our appeal for Alternative Primatial Oversight, and without any expectation that the Episcopal House of Bishops will turn from the course so unequivocably embraced at their March meeting.

Achievements and Failures

So where are we?

[Video Clip of Building the Airplane while Flying It]

Anyone reading the minutes of the Pittsburgh Council [included in your packets] will recognize that many of the hopes we expressed for the nature of our work this past year were not realized. Some of what we imagined the Steering Committee might do in peopling committees to look at liturgy and discipleship and such routine matters of normal church life was predicated on a hope for more ordinary times. Transitions in jurisdiction – like those described as I began – were among the factors that made this past year among the most tumultuous for our movement. Financial challenges – largely occasioned as our most generous parish supporters faced their own challenges in transitions, lawsuits and loss of facilities – were constant. Similar financial challenges have affected all our AGMP agencies. Many of us also found ourselves just worn down and worn out by the continuing struggle. As the Deans are fond of quipping: “It is good that we don’t all want to quit on the same day.” But we didn’t quit. As always, we helped each other. God helped us. Even in the darkest times, the work went forward.

A Finance Committee was organized during the course of the year and senior statesman Bill Roemer of Pittsburgh became our Treasurer. At last there are budgets and audits to look at together. Anglican Relief and Development Fund was spun off and has become the Relief and Development agency of most of the Common Cause Partners. Succeeding Dr. Peter Moore, its Chairman is now an Anglican Mission priest, Mike Murphy. Can. Nancy Norton remains its Director.

In the spring, the weekly meeting of the Moderator’s (Network) Cabinet was suspended in favor of a Common Cause Cabinet meeting, necessary to preparations for the September Common Cause Bishops Council. The Steering Committee has continued to meet, though most often without my presence. The stretching for us all is tremendous. Strains, more than ever, affect the workings of the Network Bishops, though we are not divided in our assessment of a failed Episcopal Church. The Network Deans have continued their extraordinary leadership, though as we end this year between Councils only one of the six – the Forward in Faith Dean – remains within the Episcopal Church.

The staff in the Pittsburgh office, like the staff assistants in the Convocations, have done extraordinary service. Can. Daryl Fenton, who has kept me and countless others in good humor and on track in the toughest of times, and he deserves, with our support staff, our deep gratitude. The ministry initiatives in Children and Youth, in Evangelism, in International Mission and in Church Planting have been the best of works in the worst of times. New churches continue to be planted. The Children and Youth initiative has developed a cutting edge program for training lay workers on-line with Cambridge University. The evangelism initiative has presented three regional conferences, already helping hundreds to better share the good news in daily life, with seven more conferences – coming to a neighborhood near you – this fall and winter.

The remarkable thing is, we have had the leaders we have needed for the challenges we have faced. One can only conclude that our God has been in this.

One great triumph of this past year is the provision of a domestic episcopate for the clergy and congregations that have left the Episcopal Church and moved into the Network’s International Conference, now numbering well over one hundred congregations across the United States. Bp. Bill Cox was the first. He serves the congregations of Oklahoma under Southern Cone. Bp. Andy Fairfield was next. He became a bishop of the Church of Uganda in June. He serves those ICon congregations that call on him. More significant still are the decisions of Kenya and Uganda to make new bishops for the work in the United States: Bill Attwood, Bill Murdoch, and John Guernsey. These join the AMiA and CANA bishops in service to what are now several hundred Anglican congregations in the U.S. (and Canada), all of whom will be at the September Common Cause Council. To all of this we expect to see our brother Bill Illgenfritz added. Forward in Faith North America has reaffirmed their nomination of Fr. Bill to serve that constituency as a flying bishop, and I have committed myself to working to find a Provincial ally to make it so. In the choice of these bishops we also see some who are clearly in favor of the ordination of women and some who are opposed to it, and the unity and commitments forged at our first Network Council shapes our ongoing life without reduction.

Another significant development since last Annual Council are the deepening Common Cause regional alliances. I have been privileged to meet with four of these regional groupings since last December. Over and over the message is the same: “We all want to be one again.” A biblical, missionary and uniting vision for Anglicans in North America, by God’s grace, is owned by countless believers and fellow-workers, as well as by those who meet in this hall.

LAST THINGS

I have served as Moderator for three and one-half years. My term ends with this Annual Council. It has been the hardest thing I have ever done. Your efforts and your prayers have sustained me. And our God has been good to us beyond measure.

David Anderson has served as Network Secretary during these same three and one-half years. His term also ends with this Council. None of us will forget, and the history of the movement must record, his leadership in bringing the financial and administrative resources of the American Anglican Council to enable the first eighteen months of the life of the Anglican Communion Network. Few acts of generosity in organizational life have a parallel in this great act of benefaction to birth the Network.

We must also elect a treasurer and one half of our Steering Committee. To all who have served we express our gratitude and appreciation: whether on Cabinet or Steering Committee or in any capacity for the good of the whole. The sacrifice represented in the efforts of those who have served us is remarkable in the extreme. To those who have stood with us as congregations, vestries, dioceses, colleagues, friends, confessors, intercessors, families and especially spouses we express a similarly vast thankfulness.

I began with words from the prophet Ezekiel. God is judging shepherds and is judging between sheep. His promise is to save His flock. His promise is that His sheep will no longer be a “prey,” either to unfaithful shepherds or to fat sheep (or to wolves). His servant David, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the true and trustworthy shepherd. We, in the Anglican Communion Network, propose to follow Him, even through the valley of the shadow of death. For Jesus is our Way, our Truth, our Life. We can do no other.

Cheryl M. Wetzel, Editor The Anglican Voice Monday July 30, 2007 The morning session Anglican Communion Network Annual Meeting St. Vincent’s Cathedral, Fort Worth, TX Bishop Duncan began, “I will save my flock, they shall no longer be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them and be their shepherd. [Ezekiel 34:22-23] ....Continue reading, "Anglican Communion Network Post #1 Monday 1:00 PM"

“David Anderson, John Guernsey, Andy Fairfield, Dave Roseberry, Martyn Minns, Dan Herzog, Alison Barfoot, Bill Cox, John Yates, Bill Atwood, Bill Cobb, Valarie Whitcomb, Dwight Duncan, Ron Jackson, Dave Bena, Bill Murdoch, Don Armstrong… What do these believers all have in common? …Great leaders, all. Yes, of course. One other thing, at least… Each was a priest or bishop (four bishops in fact) of the Episcopal Church at the Network Council one year ago… None is a leader of the Episcopal Church today. This seismic shift is the context in which we meet for this fourth Annual Council of the Anglican Communion Network….”

With these somber words, Bishop Bob Duncan opened the first session of the Anglican Communion Network meeting, which began today at St. Vincent’s Cathedral, Fort Worth, TX. Indeed, it was a morning of talk of Good Friday and the grief and disbelief that the disciples showed at Jesus’ crucifixion. They did not follow him to Jerusalem to be killed, but to be crowned.

How did the disciples’ expectations fall so far from the reality of the situation? And how do our assumptions about reclaiming The Episcopal Church and modifying their current pattern of decisions cripple us?

Indeed, the evidence is daunting: Dar es Salaam Communiqué designed the Primatial Vicar and Pastoral Council approach so the orthodox could stay in TEC and have adequate Episcopal oversight. The fact that it has been summarily dismissed by first the House of Bishop and then The Executive Council begs the question. Clearly there was little or no tolerance for anyone whose opinion differs from TEC. Our bishops are ridiculed and shunned at HOB meetings; our deputies are laughed at and mocked at General Convention; our clergy are disciplined in non-Network dioceses. Yes, friends. It is Good Friday. The reality of Mrs. Jefferts Schori and company is a bitter pill to chew, let alone swallow.

But before we continue to ask these meaty questions, let me set the scene for you. This meeting started with Morning Prayer, Eucharist and Bible Study. Nearly every registered participant was in attendance, totting their Bibles with lots of paper to take notes. Bible study will be a highlight of this day, as Archbishop Gregory Venables, the Southern Cone (Argentina and South America) is a gifted and lively teacher. Thunderstorms in the Dallas area delayed his arrival so Bible study will happen this afternoon. Believe me, after this morning’s session, we will need every Word of Life available! Contrast this to the Bible study at Executive Council when 3 out of 30 came to Morning Prayer and I was the only person with a Bible.

All questions asked at the morning session were treated with dignity. No one hopped up and started shouting; no one was demeaned. Not all share the same opinion about the current state of the orthodox, or the inevitable outcome of the debate. But, collegiality reigns. And, it is not a false sense of tolerance; it is friendships forged over the last 10-15 years of struggle, hope and disappointment.

Many of those here now have spent their entire lives in The Episcopal Church; others, clergy and laity alike, chose this church either during college or shortly thereafter. The mood is somber and the desire for a radically different outcome than the disciples got after Palm Sunday is still here. We mourn the death of our church and perhaps our Communion. The grief is palpable.

At the most solemn moment, retired Bishop Bill Cox, recently gone to The Southern Cone moved to the microphone and quoted Tony Campallo: “It may be Friday today, but Sunday is coming!” The room exploded with applause and celebration.

OK, Lord. We are here together and listening as hard as we know how. And we are asking you for Resurrection. You resurrected our Lord; now please resurrect our Church. We await your response. AMEN. Please pray today for all the bishops here, laity and seminarians. All have come to seek the Lord and forge a way forward against incredible odds.

More later this evening. I bid you peace. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United & Latimer Press, in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Special Report By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 7/29/2007 If traditional Anglicans don't turn up at Lambeth 2008, the liberals in the Anglican Communion will change Anglicanism and will do so without blinking an eyelid. Speaking to traditionalists at a Festival of Faith gathering in Bladensburg, Maryland, on Saturday, West Indies Archbishop the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez said the communion was at a turning point and he had grave doubts it will survive in its present form. ....Continue reading, "REVISIONISTS WILL DOMINATE LAMBETH IF TRADITIONAL ANGLICANS PULL OUT"

"The official Anglican representation will be synonymous with the American Episcopal Church and that movement is increasing if Global South traditionalists don't attend. Many believe that if that happens the communion will no longer be Anglican.

"We need a communion meeting that reflects the future of the communion. There is no reason why a priest or congregation is persecuted because they simply want to practice traditional Anglicanism. We cannot go on
with an ambiguousness and intolerance that is only increasing.

"The Bishop of Western Louisiana, the Rt. Rev. Bruce McPherson made an impassioned plea at Dar es Salaam, (Tanzania) to give us the space to practice our religion; "Just allow us to practice our faith.," he cried
to the primates.

Gomez told his audience, "We have to change the mindset of people in The Episcopal Church who not only resent traditional Anglicanism but want to root it out. We must claim our God given space. God has not given them
the right to deny us what the church has believed and practiced. We need a communion meeting and a communion decision on how we move forward, and that might lead us to move beyond the geographic delineations we have
imposed on the communion."

According to the Anglo-Catholic Archbishop said the communion had has no mechanism to deal with these the situations that have arisen in the communion. "We must be able to meet and take action collectively.," he said.

The erudite archbishop said the Primates meeting in Tanzania was one of the most difficult meetings he had has ever attended. "We started in an atmosphere of gloom and no one expected a resolution to the impasse.
Traditional Anglicanism is under siege in the U.S. and Canada. We focused on the Anglicans in the U.S. By the grace of God we labored and came out with a good result."

"In our private discussions we decided as primates that the time had come for the Anglican Communion to try to be of assistance to The Episcopal Church in America after hearing from the three U.S. bishops who had been invited to attend and tell us their story on the state of the Episcopal Church." (The three were: Bishops Bob Duncan, Pittsburgh, Bruce McPherson, Western Louisiana, and C. Christopher Epting, the Episcopal Church's deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations.)

"We sought an amicable solution to a difficult problem. We proposed that there be established a Pastoral Council and provision made for Alternative Primatial Oversight for those provinces under siege. We saw it as a temporary arrangement - a space for all sectors in the church to live and work together until we had achieved a covenant that we could all sign up or sign off onto. This would be with the consent of the American Presiding Bishop and TEC in which the Archbishop of Canterbury would appoint a chairman of this council and the Presiding Bishop would
be present in person."

This council would was to work with all sectors of the church and all sides would were to work and worship without interference, said the archbishop.

"There was no doubt that traditionalist Episcopal priests, parishes and parishioners are under siege. Liberals were not just against them they were oppressing them. It was bad for them and Anglicanism. So we sought to create a space out of interest for all the members of the church. Our proposal and that is all it was, because the Primates had no authority grew out of our concern at large but especially for the church in the US."

Gomez said that for the first time the Archbishop of Canterbury didn't try to assume a consensus. "For the first time he asked each Primate individually for a 'yes' or 'no.' Every Primate present said 'yes' including the American Presiding Bishop, Mrs. Schori.

"Unfortunately the Presiding Bishop then went around [later] qualifying what she voted for, but in the meeting no such qualification was given."

The West Indies archbishop then blasted Mrs. Schori. "After the House of Bishops met two weeks later, they did two things. They misunderstood (in the sense of charity) our aim and intention and then they acted as if
the Primates were trying to force the Episcopal Church into an untenable position. No such thing happened. It was offered up only as a way forward.

"They not only rejected the offer, they then [turned around] and accused the Primates of being colonialists, and outsiders interfering with their church polity. This was very strange because it had to be under the aegis of the Episcopal Church! Mrs. Schori said that only General Convention could make such an offer, said Gomez. "This ended up giving General Convention an authority it does not have. General Convention cannot decide truth or doctrine; it has no background or authority to do that."

"In rejecting the offer, they have requested the Archbishop of Canterbury meet with them so they can share their concerns with them in September in New Orleans.

"We hope and pray that as a result of that meeting there might be a change of heart and direction; that is my hope and prayer." Gomez admitted, however, that that seemed a bit difficult in light of the position taken by the House of Bishops and the Executive Council of TEC.

"If the 30th Sept. deadline fixed for an answer by TEC is not met, answering without clarifications and unambiguity on where they stand on same sex blessings, then it could signal a break up of the communion."

"Their (the TEC's) action was known and done in defiance of the rest of the entire Anglican Communion. The American Church, on its own, and knowing the position held by the rest of the communion acted in defiance
of the beliefs and practices of the rest of the Anglican Communion."

Gomez said 12 African Anglican provinces had have put out a Road to Lambeth statement saying they could not attend Lambeth if those bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson were invited;, it would tear the fabric of
the Communion. "It was so torn that they refused to take communion at the primates meeting."

"In planning for Lambeth we don't know who is going or coming, but if there is a large group who will not attend it will change the structure and significance of the Lambeth Conference. The Archbishop of Canterbury wants to focus on spirituality and mission.

"The big question is how can you have a meeting of the leaders of the communion in one place while refusing to address the issues that are tearing the communion apart and preventing the Anglican Communion from
moving forward?"

Gomez blasted criticized Episcopal Church liberals and revisionists who blamed conservatives over sexuality issues. "The first misrepresentation is about the type of sex - homosexuality, and secondly we are perceived
as being against homosexual persons."

"The issue is about homosexual practice. The Bible addresses not the existence of homosexuality. No one is preaching in the abstract but about the homosexual lifestyle about which the bible speaks negatively.
Everywhere in the bible homosexual practice is always spoken of negatively - it is contrary for God's will for the human race."

Gomez said the reason it was so important is that the issue is not simply about sexuality but the meaning attached to homosexual practice, its context and biblical revelation.

"In the church's long history the uninterrupted consensus is that physical intercourse is only intended for man and woman within marriage in a life long commitment. Anything else is contrary to God's will for humanity. The ground for the church taking this stand is the bible and it is transparently clear about homosexual behavior."

Gomez praised the writings of theologian Dr. Robert Gagnon, author of whose the book "The Bible and Homosexuality", he cited as "the best book on the subject."

Citing the various New Testament passages on explicitly homosexuality practices, Gomez he said those passages where homosexual practice was explicitly mentioned, it was treated as a negative. "Any sexual practice outside of marriage reflects a way of life and lifestyle that is doomed to perish. Christ by his death and resurrection has set us free."

Gomez blasted condemned the failure of those who opposed traditional teaching and who underrated the text. "They have failed to produce an interpretation of the text and its fuller understanding to the satisfaction of the larger church."

Gomez said the cited passages in from the Book of Romans, I Corinthians and I Timothy condemned sodomy. "God gave them over to a depraved mind. Homosexual acts are contrary to God's will. It is not just the sexual act being criticized but deliberate rebellion against what God has revealed and stands for. It is a revolt against the gospel. The Apostle Paul singles out homosexual intercourse as reprehensible because it is a fundamental denial of what God has created.

"The challenge of the church is the fundamental question of the nature of reality. Which relationship corresponds to God's ordering of life and which violates it?"

Gomez said the Canadian church, in questioning questioned homosexuality, and had said that while it had doctrinal roots it was not core doctrine. "If something is about God's ordering of life how can it be not be core
doctrine. Our sexuality must conform to the divine ordering. By endorsing homosexuality we are going against God's ordering of life.

Gomez said that Rochester Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali had adequately criticized the Canadian position.

"What can be more fundamental than to follow God's way; that is the issue we are wrestling with? Is it God's will or is it not? I represent the traditional mind of the Anglican Church and we have been maligned and called all kinds of names. But we are to stand for what God stands for and God's ordering...that is the issue."

"The new agenda for the church is not consistent with God's agenda. We don't believe that there can be any other agenda for the church."

"We traditionalists had been accused of being homophobic which is a bit like saying if we condemn adulterers we are should all be called adulterophobic. The word homophobia has become a blunt weapon in an acrimonious campaign to overturn the unanimous conviction of the church that homosexual practice is used to repudiate and malign the traditional position and persons who hold the position."

Gomez said Episcopal homosexuals were using names and slogans on the position we hold accusing us of bigotry, prejudice without any just cause. "Worse still when you quote Romans Chapter 1 you are accused of being a Fundamentalist to dismiss what we stand for.

"We have leading Biblical scholars who address the text using all the expertise available. When they refer them to the text they use these terms because they are unable to deal with technical evidence we are able to present."

Gomez ripped found fault with Jeffrey John, the Dean of St. Alban's who accused orthodox bishops of using selective texts FOR being 'fundamentalist.' "But using quotes of the bible to try and refute it is just as fundamentalist. We have to be consistent. We believe that the teaching of the Bible is core doctrine because it is about the divine ordering of life; it is about the human condition. By introducing a new anthropology they forget about Genesis. Now we are being asked to look at human beings in a new light. There is no justification or solid
evidence. We believe that it is wrong and we are determined to fight it.

The Anglican Communion continues to uphold the position decided in 1998 (Lambeth 1:10) - it is the position of the overwhelming number of Christians across the globe."

During a question and answer period that followed his speech Archbishop Gomez answered a number of questions put to him by this reporter and those from the floor.

Here is his answer to several questions on what Christians believe in other denominations about homosexuality:

Gomez: "The vast majority of Christians believe the position we put forward. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox family of churches all teach the same and most of the denominations in the Western world teach what we are upholding.

"They, the liberals, represent only a small number who believe differently. They do not reflect the belief of the vast majority of Christians even though they like to give the opposite impression.

On Scripture:

Gomez: "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers. It is a fight we are engaged in and we will see it through to the end, and we intend to see the Anglican Communion maintain its orthodox position. We will end up on the right side of the debate."

On how the Global South will respond:

Gomez: Bishops and archbishops will respond to Sept. 30 whatever TEC puts forward by way of response

On money:

Gomez: The Episcopal Church is the largest contributor donor within the Anglican community. We cannot end up hostage to money. Some Africans have said they won't take any action if we become hostages to money.

On Boycotting Lambeth and decisions they make without traditionalists present.

Gomez: If Lambeth happens with a large boycott, liberals could try and vote to overthrow previous resolutions. Archbishop Williams wants a different type of Lambeth. There are two main areas of concern - The Windsor Report and the Covenant that he wants the conference to address.

Gomez: If bishops of CAPA and their 12 Primates they don't show up or only a small portion, it means that half of the bishops representing two-thirds of the communion won't be represented. Nigeria alone has over 100 bishops representing 18 million Anglicans. Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda all have large constituencies. That is why the whole future of Lambeth is so important. The decisions of Lambeth represent the mind of the communion. We are seriously challenged by the present situation.

On the Covenant:

Gomez: Discussion on the Covenant has only just started.
END

http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/07/no-compromise-on-essentials.html Thursday, July 26, 2007 No Compromise on Essentials By Stephen Noll There was a young lady from Niger, Who smiled as she rode on a tiger. They returned from a ride With the lady inside, And the smile on the face of the tiger. The 20th century is strewn with examples of totalitarian tigers who used dialogue as a means to gain power, and of feckless compromisers who thought they could go for a ride, only to bring destruction on themselves and their people. The century has also given us a few glorious examples of leaders who understood that in matters of essential principle, standing fast is the only faithful response. ....Continue reading, "Why Dialogue Cannot Resolve the Sexuality Issue in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion"

Who can forget the image of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938, standing in the window of 10 Downing Street, waving a piece of paper which, he told a hopeful British public, would bring “peace for our time”? The infamous Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler resolved that “consultation shall be the method adopted” for all disputes in Europe. In fact, the agreement emboldened Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia, cost the British half a year’s war preparation, led to Chamberlain’s resignation in disgrace, and brought to center stage Winston Churchill, the one leader who had preached bull-doggedly throughout the 1930’s against those who cried peace, peace, when there was no peace.

In the waning decades of the century, God has treated us to the example of two saints who stood steadfastly against two evil systems that have devoured untold millions of the children of earth: legalized abortion and Communism. Mother Teresa caressed the outcasts of Calcutta even as she faced down the President of the United States for “killing babies” by abortion. Emerging from the crucible of Communism in 1978, Pope John Paul II dealt the death-blow to that “progressive” worldview that had substituted materialism for the truth of God. Summoned by a desperate Fidel Castro, the last Communist true believer, the Pope stated at his first public Mass: “No ideology can replace His infinite wisdom and power.” Does anyone doubt that there will be Christians worshiping in Cuba long after the last Revolutionary is dead and buried?

The warning against false compromise is firmly rooted in the biblical understanding of God’s exclusive character and covenant. The “sin of Jeroboam,” repeatedly denounced in the Books of Kings, refers to the decision by King Jeroboam I to build “alternative” sanctuaries to the Jerusalem Temple within the northern kingdom. This decision seemed sensible, since every nation had its own shrines. The problem was that God had expressly commanded one and only one site for his name to be worshiped (Deuteronomy 12:5). Jeroboam’s policy led to rampant idolatry in his kingdom and its ultimate destruction by Assyria, the rod of Yahweh’s anger. As the prophet Isaiah saw it, God’s call to “reason together” with Israel began not with negotiations about his holy will, but with their repentance from idolatry (Isaiah 1:18-20).

The Lord Jesus repeated the lesson of the Old Testament when he stated that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Mark 3:24-25). His divine Person and death on the Cross became a “stone of stumbling” to the compromisers of his day, those Jews and Greeks who wanted him as a good teacher but not as Savior and Lord. In like manner, St. Paul rejected a “separate but equal” plan for Jewish Christians to eat apart from Gentile Christians, calling it hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-14). Paul saw behind this plan a spiritual failure to accept the full implications of the Gospel of free grace in Christ. To compromise on this issue was to compromise the Gospel itself.

To compromise on essentials is a temptation with disastrous consequences. This lesson, attested in Scripture and history, is directly applicable to the sexuality debate in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. For the leaders of the Church to make room for a morality that blesses relationships and acts that God has expressly forbidden is courting the tiger. We need our Churchill, our Mother Teresa or John Paul to stand up and say No and to show us the more excellent way to freedom, peace, and love.

The essay that follows builds on my conclusion in “The Handwriting on the Wall” that the promotion of homosexuality as an alternative Christian lifestyle is an essential matter that contradicts Scripture, dishonors marriage, and introduces a pagan spirituality into the Church. From this conclusion I will go on to argue that any attempt to dialogue on this issue, if it implies negotiating a compromise, is contrary to the classical Anglican way, will not bring peace to the Church, will undermine the Church’s witness, and involves a fatal failure of Christian imagination.

Why Dialogue on Essentials Is Against the Anglican Way

Anglicans have always claimed that their faith is both catholic and Protestant: catholic in its historic continuity with the Church of the apostles, Protestant in placing the Church under the authority of the Bible and not over it or beside it. This classic view of Anglicanism can be characterized by two catch phrases: essentials and adiaphora, and via media.

Essentials and Adiaphora
The “three-legged stool” of Anglican authority – Scripture, tradition, and reason – depends on the distinction between essentials and adiaphora (adiaphora is a Greek word meaning “indifferent” or non-essential matters). The distinction hinges on the purpose of God’s revelation, which is salvation in Jesus Christ. Essential things are necessary to our eternal salvation, and they do not change. Indifferent matters, e.g., particular forms of church government or particular liturgies, may be important and are even necessary in some form, but they vary considerably from time to time and place to place.

Essentials are those core beliefs and actions clearly taught in the Bible. Richard Hooker, the premier Anglican theologian, argued that since Scripture’s main goal is to announce this salvation,

what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit [i.e., belief] and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth. (Laws V.8.2; italics added).

Church tradition may develop the teachings of Scripture, but it cannot contradict them. Reason, rightly used, may confirm biblical truth or investigate areas of God’s work not directly related to salvation.

The idea of “center and periphery” in Christian beliefs and practices only works if the center holds. The center cannot be a moving target. The Prayer Book defines this center in terms of three “rules” of faith, life, and prayer, summed up in the Creeds, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. God’s design “from the beginning” that two sexes become one flesh is part of the core teaching of the Church, clearly and consistently taught in Scripture (Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:6-9). This design undergirds its doctrine, discipline, and liturgy of Holy Matrimony and the authentic identity of men and women as sexual beings.

The essentials/adiaphora distinction is constitutive of the Anglican Communion. Each member church has pledged to uphold the “substance of the Faith,” i.e. the essentials, as it has received them. Anglican churches cannot rewrite the essentials to their liking any more than the Church as a whole can rewrite the Bible. The Lambeth Quadrilateral is a statement of essentials offered to the wider Church of Christ as a permanent basis of unity. Churches may vary in all sorts of ways, the Quadrilateral says, but in essential respects, they are all one and the same. And the first of these essentials is the authority of Scripture.

Via Media
The hallmark of the Anglican via media (middle way) is: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” The idea of a middle way of faith does not mean lukewarmness or political compromise, though both of these distortions can be found in Anglican Church history. Rather, it points to that balance of reason and obedience, liberty and law, that characterizes the children of God (Galatians 5:1).

The idea of Anglicanism as a “golden mean” makes no sense without the distinction between essentials and adiaphora. It is impossible for a church that holds no fixed doctrine to be moderate. Such a church simply is whatever it is at that moment in history, “doing its own thing.” When Protestant Anglicans claimed for their mother church that “the mean, thy praise and glory is” (George Herbert), they did so on the assumption she stood for something, that the Church had an indelible identity and integrity worth living and dying for.

St. Paul foresaw the danger that the openness of love might be used “as an occasion for the flesh,” that Gospel liberty might become a rationalization for libertinism (Galatians 5:13-24). And it has. In our day, Joseph Fletcher, Episcopal priest and father of “situation ethics,” defended abortion and euthanasia, practices universally condemned by Christian tradition, as an expression of the via media. And now gay-rights advocates are claiming to be mediating between fundamentalist conservatives and radical libertines in calling for “faithful monogamous” relationships between same-sex couples.

The Anglican Way Compromised
At the recent installation of Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, Muslim and Jewish guests presented him with a copy of the Koran and the Hebrew Scriptures as “sacred writings from our faith traditions.” In authentic interfaith dialogues, it is agreed that dialogue may begin from different starting points based in the dissimilarity of each faith. But an interfaith approach to issues internal to one faith is a contradiction in terms. Only if one admits that there are two different religions in Anglicanism can one dialogue as we do with Muslims and Jews. To do that is to admit that we are divided over essentials.

Recently, Professor Rowan Greer of Yale University criticized as “negative” the American Anglican Council’s statement of essentials, “A Place to Stand, A Call to Mission.” Professor Greer apparently thinks all confessions are negative and questions whether any authoritative formulary at all is possible. “Perhaps what Anglicans of all stripes ought to have in common” he concludes, “is a willingness to place infallibility where it belongs, in God and His Christ." Professor Greer hovers skeptically above the fray of doctrinal debates, leaving all to God. His position can be termed postmodern, concluding that since there are no firm foundations, it is best not to get too serious about any of them.

Postmodernism is wrong in its denial of essentials. It is also deceptive, since it usually imports its own hidden set of essentials. Many revisionist Episcopalians will conclude from Professor Greer’s shrug of the shoulders that since whatever is, is right, they may push their agenda through the councils of the Church. Without the sword of God’s Word and Spirit expressed in explicit and shared standards of faith and action, the Church becomes a political battlefield, where might makes right and whoever has the votes determines what God’s will is for the present time.

Adiaphora without essentials is like a sandwich without a filling, and a church with no stable, biblical center offers no middle way. One can be truly open-minded to dialogue on some matters only when one is absolutely committed to others. The issue to be decided in the present case is whether or not the church’s traditional teaching on sexual morality is an essential part of the Gospel. I am convinced that traditional sexual norms are essential and that revision of those norms leads inevitably to denial of other essential Christian beliefs and practices. Therefore I conclude that the Anglican Communion needs not a dialogue but a contemporary statement of biblical principle. The Kuala Lumpur Statement fits the bill with simplicity and clarity.

Why Dialogue on Sexuality Will Not Bring Peace

The desire to avoid conflict is understandable, especially when that conflict might lead to a visible break in the Church. The question, however, is how best to maintain unity: by compromise or by upholding and enforcing norms. Just as compromise about doctrinal essentials is incoherent, so also political compromise between parties who are divided over essentials cannot succeed. A house divided will eventually end up serving one master or the other – or falling to pieces. The recent history of attempts at dialogue on essentials bears this out.

The Eames Commission
The most widely known case of compromise in the Anglican Communion has been the acceptance of the ordination of women in some Provinces and its continued rejection in others. The 1988 Lambeth Conference urged its Provinces to respect the decisions of other Provinces on this issue. It also mandated a study commission, later known as the Eames Commission after its chairman Archbishop Robert Eames of Ireland, to produce a report, which it did in the early 1990’s.

The Eames Report focused its concern on how “Anglicans can continue to live together” and chose the theme of koinonia or “communion” as the solution to the problem of resolving serious differences. Certain implications flowed from this focus:

· The Report acknowledged that differences over women’s ordination led to “restricted” or “impaired” communion and that impaired communion meant an impoverishment of the Church and its mission.
· It called for a “reception period” to evaluate the innovation of women’s ordination “until a consensus of opinion one way or another has been achieved.”
· It described inconsistent practices on ordination as an “anomaly in preference to schism.”
· It rejected the idea of parallel jurisdictions for those who favor or oppose women’s ordination, arguing that each Province should decide uniformly by voting in synods.
· It denied the ecumenical damage – e.g., Pope John Paul’s warning that “the Catholic Church, like the Orthodox Church is firmly opposed to this development” – by arguing that the wider church is just beginning to formulate its tradition on this matter.

For all its practical wisdom, the Eames Report is seriously flawed in its avoidance of the question of whether the Church holds any essentials and whether women’s ordination is one of them. There are many in the Church who believe the question of women’s ordination to be adiaphora, neither commanded nor forbidden in Scripture but part of a “rule” of church order which is instrumental and not fundamental to salvation. There are others who believe that women’s ordination is forbidden because it confuses or undermines the headship of Christ and men; or that is required because it is a necessary part of the equal freedom of Christians to exercise their gifts and calling.

Because the Eames Commission failed to grapple with question of essentials, it gives no guidance as to whether every issue can be treated as an anomaly that can impair but not break the communion of the Church. What if some province of the Communion elected to revise the Creeds or to allow polygamy or to worship God as Mother – notions, I might add, that are percolating in today’s progressive circles? Would these innovations trigger a similar “reception process”? The Eames Commission offers no principle on which to distinguish between these options and women’s ordination.

The Eames Report uses high-sounding language of koinonia and “open process,” but by leaving decisions to national synods, it actually politicizes the issue. The actual experience of “dialogue” in the Episcopal Church is a case in point. I do not know of one genuinely open dialogue in our Church since women’s ordination was passed in 1976 on the question of whether or not it is of God (the “Gamaliel principle” from Acts 5:38-39). The idea that, at the end of the day, the Episcopal Church might decide to undo its decision has never been allowed at national levels. When some Episcopal Church leaders say “the Church has made up its mind,” they mean, “we’ve got the votes to get our way.”

The 1997 General Convention revised its canons so as to bar opponents of women’s ordination from leadership. This action stands as a testimony to the failure of the Eames principle of reception. When push comes to shove, the Episcopal Church does not consider itself bound by the Eames principle. Expect the same reaction if the Kuala Lumpur statement is approved. And the reason is simple: American revisionists are not truly pluralists. They have their own essentials based on what they call “justice love,” and they are willing to go to the wall for these essentials.

“Continuing the Dialogue” in the Episcopal Church
Having failed to discipline sexual dissidents like Bishops Spong and Righter in the late 1980’s, Episcopal Church leaders resorted to a “sexuality dialogue,” which was conducted from 1991-1994. Inevitably, the dialogue had to be framed from one point of view or another, and the resulting study materials reflected the views of revisionist leaders. Parishioners were encouraged to identify their homophobic prejudices and to read the Bible as an archaic document that can be followed only in its most general mandate to love and respect all persons.

The outcome of the sexuality dialogue was schizophrenic. While reaffirming the traditional teaching that “the normative context of sexual intimacy is lifelong heterosexual, monogamous marriage,” the 1994 General Convention accepted such homosexual activity as “discontinuous” and not contrary to its teaching. Hearkening to this uncertain trumpet, sexual liberals continued openly ordaining non-celibate homosexuals and, after the Righter Trial in 1996, went one step further in officiating at public same-sex “blessings.”

The so-called dialogue in the Episcopal Church could not continue because it never began. Even its official conveners have decided to let it die. When we Americans hear the Archbishop of Canterbury calling for something very similar, we are suspicious and even alarmed. To be sure, a commission truly representative of the whole Anglican Communion might come at the question from a very different point of view. But what is the point of such a dialogue since revisionists have already announced that they will not abide by any decisions they do not like and that they will not desist from their practices in the meantime.

The Moratorium Appeal (1997)
As sexuality issues loomed once again prior to the 1997 General Convention, several Episcopal scholars proposed “An Appeal for a Moratorium on Altering the Church’s Teaching Regarding Homosexuality and for the Protection of Private Conscience.” Their Appeal would have upheld the classical norms as the Church’s official teaching, allowed for private dissent, and opened up a twenty-one year period of dialogue on the subject.

The proposal, while an innovative idea, was a total failure politically. The reasons are instructive. Traditionalists felt that it permitted acts that are wrong at all times. Revisionists considered the idea of putting their agenda back “in the closet” to be an offense against homosexuals. The still-born Moratorium proposal stands witness to the inevitable failure to resolve matters of essential principle, however clever the solution.

Bishop Spong’s Manifesto to the Anglican Archbishops
The Archbishops of the Anglican Communion were treated to a wake-up call from Bishop John Spong in November 1997. Vexed by the Kuala Lumpur and Dallas Statements, Bishop Spong decided to serve up his own views and to do so full-strength. The resulting exchange between Bishop Spong and the Archbishop of Canterbury should serve as a warning about the impossibility of genuine dialogue.

For all his bravado, the secret of the Bishop of Newark’s success over the past twenty years stems from his conviction that there are essentials and the historic Christian faith has gotten those essentials dead wrong. It is no accident that he has written books attacking or questioning the “literal” Bible, the Fatherhood of God and deity of Jesus Christ, the integrity of the Virgin Mary and St. Paul, and basic moral prohibitions such as sex outside marriage and euthanasia. Can one imagine another figure in church history who begged harder to be defrocked for heresy? But what he got instead was a twelve-year term on the House of Bishops’ Theology Committee!

Bishop Spong is convinced that truth trumps unity. “To be closed to new revelations and new truth,” he says, “is to come dangerously close to what the New Testament calls the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.” This closure to new revelation is, of course, exactly what the closing of the biblical canon meant. This was the Church’s answer to the gnostics’ and Montanists’ claims to further truth. Deny this closure and you have Bishop Charles Bennison’s principle that “since the Church wrote Holy Scripture, the Church can rewrite it.”

Given his convictions, Bishop Spong understands dialogue to be only a transitional stage to “the wave of the future,” a new consensus in which the Anglican Communion will apologize to homosexuals for their former oppression and will welcome them into ordained ministry and full sacramental marriage. This new consensus will have no place for traditionalists since “the integrity of the Gospel is at risk unless we confront this killing prejudice in our midst and root it out of the body of Christ” (emphasis added).

The Archbishop of Canterbury was obviously taken aback by this fusillade from the Bishop of Newark. We Anglicans in the United States have heard it all before, and we know that Bishop Spong will mount his bully pulpit either in the councils of the Church or in the press. What we want to make clear to our international colleagues is that Bishop Spong is not an anomaly. He has not said or done anything blatantly that other Episcopal church leaders have not said or done more covertly. They may feel uneasy about his tactics, but they agree with him at heart when he says:

Church unity is important to me, but it is not an ultimate value. Truth and justice are. A Church unified by racism, [male] chauvinism or homophobia cannot be the Body of Christ. Our task as God’s Church is to discern truth and to proclaim justice, and if that disturbs the unity of the Church, so be it.

Bishop Spong is correct: differences over essentials must lead to a breach of communion. Patristics scholar Jeffrey Steenson has commented that “what is noteworthy in the doctrinal controversies of early Christianity is the willingness to break communion for the sake of truth.” Where Bishop Spong errs is in substituting his own secular essentials for the truth of the biblical Gospel. In so doing he puts himself out of communion with the apostolic church.

The bishops of the Anglican Communion have a choice: they can expose the falsity of the new sexual morality, or they can coat it over with the veneer of koinonia and collegiality. If they choose the latter course, they will disfellowship many conscientious Episcopalians in the process.

Why Dialogue on Sexuality Will Undermine the Church’s Witness

Jesus likened his kingdom to a house, saying: “Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock” (Matthew 7:24). He went on to portray what happens to a church that does not hear and do his words: “the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:25).

The early Christians understood the God-given connection between commitment to apostolic doctrine, peace within the church, and effective witness to those outside. On the Day of Pentecost, “those who received Peter’s word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:41-42). The Church cannot feed its own members if it is uncertain about what the essential Gospel is, as Jesus well knew when he said: “if your eye is not single, your whole body will be full of darkness.” And if the Church does not know the truth, it cannot be a light to the nations: “If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23).

The progress of the Decade of Evangelism in the Anglican Communion has demonstrated the truth of our Lord’s words. The Church has been growing, in some cases dramatically, in those Provinces that uphold clear biblical principles of faith and morals. In those Provinces that have been engaged in disputes and doubts over essentials, there has been no growth and even loss of members. Of course, one can cite various factors that contribute to church growth or decline, but the main reason is that commitment to biblical truth is the necessary foundation for the spark of the Holy Spirit to come and empower the church.

I would not deny that in some urban Episcopal parishes where homosexuality is espoused, there has been modest church growth. What I would question is whether these new members have embraced a saving gospel or a “cleverly devised myth” (2 Peter 1:16). And for every pro-gay convert to the Church, there are many others who ask themselves whether their church has lost its way. David Aikman, a veteran journalist for Time magazine, recently wrote:

In my spiritual journey the Lord has used Anglicans and Episcopalians to lead me to faith, disciple me and bring me ever closer to the Lord. It is therefore with acute pain that I see much of the leadership of the Episcopal Church … trying to lead the church down a pathway that is obviously at variance with biblical Christian teaching.

Many of us can no longer advise our children or friends when they move to a new community simply to look up and attend a local Episcopal parish, because we have no idea whether it will feed them the essentials of the faith or maybe even lead them astray.

The problem is not just ours in the West. The Third World churches have warned that “we live in a global village and must be more aware that we way we act in one part of the world can radically affect the mission and witness of the Church in another.” One African archbishop mentioned that Muslims were quoting Bishop Spong to show the superiority of Islamic law to Christian morality.

If the Anglican Communion were to enter into an official sexuality dialogue while allowing some Provinces openly to ordain and marry homosexuals, it would do serious harm to its ecumenical witness, which is one of its great strengths as a worldwide body. It is likely that some Provinces would refuse to participate out of conscience, which would further undermine the unity of the Communion.

What is the Anglican Communion going to look like in the future? Like the vibrant Bible-centered churches of the Third World or like the tired strife-torn churches of the West? I dearly hope the Lambeth Conference will listen humbly to the voices from the South and not let the sexuality agenda deflect the Communion from the Great Commission to take the Gospel to all nations.

Why the Call for Dialogue Involves a Failure of Imagination

Let me return to my opening analogies to pre-World War II Britain and to Communist Cuba. Because many British leaders were terrified by the threat of war, they fantasized a moderate Hitler and a peace-loving Germany despite all evidence to the contrary. By contrast, Churchill imagined the consequences of a world ruled by Nazis, and he imagined the bloody steps that Britain must take to deter this rule. Similarly, Pope John Paul has a vision based on long experience that when people are granted freedom to worship God, they will seek other freedoms as well, and Communism will collapse.

“Where there is no vision,” Scripture says, “the people perish.” I am convinced that the impulse to have a sexuality dialogue involves a fateful failure of imagination. Let me put it another way. Those who want dialogue have a moral responsibility to describe in some conceivable way how it could actually produce a solution that would preserve the Anglican Communion and make theological sense. It is not enough to wish for a resolution; one must give a vision for what that resolution would look like.

I cannot see a way forward that does not lead us back to biblical essentials. Archbishop George Carey is correct when he states: “I do not find any justification, from the Bible or the entire Christian tradition, for sexual activity outside marriage.” That being the case, I simply cannot imagine a church in which Bishop Spong and I have an equal share. If I had the authority, I would seek his removal from office for rejecting the clear teaching of the Bible, and I am sure he would seek to root me out as well as a biblical “literalist.”

The only realistic compromise – the road not taken by the Eames Commission – is the political compromise of providing parallel jurisdictions. If some Provinces follow the light of Bishop Spong’s truth, why should I be forced to leave my Anglican heritage simply because I live within the boundaries of those Provinces? Why should I be divided from fellow Anglicans who uphold biblical norms and have to leave for a non-Anglican church in my own country. (Of course, a scheme of parallel jurisdictions would also have to allow congregations of Spongites in Singapore to commune with Newark.)

I do not favor the idea of parallel jurisdictions as the best way forward, as it would be harmful to our witness and temporary in nature. Since I believe the classic faith is very clear on sexual norms, I would hate to see the Anglican Communion, with its wonderful diversity of races and cultures united in a common Gospel mission, torn apart by a tiny band of sexual radicals in the West. But this is the hard choice, like it or not, that the radicals are forcing on the Communion.

To affirm classic norms will take courage and will lead to conflict. This is unavoidable. Indeed Scripture assures us that conflict will come, both from outside the Church and also within it. In standing firm, however, the Anglican Communion will offer comfort to Christ’s own flock, even to those homosexuals who have been misled, or who wonder how they should live, or who have courageously sought healing and change. It will also offer hope to a decadent West, where family breakdown is threatening social chaos, and it will serve as an example to developing nations that Christian faith and morals can serve as a foundation for social stability, economic progress, and political freedom.

Finally, the Christian imagination and conscience are eschatologically shaped. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body”(2 Corinthians 5:10). This eschatological responsibility is particularly heavy for clergy: “Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account” (Hebrews 13:17).

I was ordained under the traditional Anglican rite, in which the Bishop asks: “Will you be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s Word?” How can I stand before the judgment seat of Christ, having compromised what I know to be an essential truth of the Gospel? Needless to say, I and many clergy like me would leave the ministry of the Episcopal Church rather than to do what we know to be wrong.

Bishops of the Anglican Communion have an even greater accountability to God over this portion of his flock. I hope and pray that they will find the courage and imagination to be obedient to the heavenly vision of those “who follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14:4).

This essay was written as a companion piece to "The Handwriting on the Wall" and was published in The Handwriting on the Wall: A Plea to the Anglican Communion (Solon, Oh: Latimer Press,k 1998). Reproduced with permission

http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/07/handwriting-on-wall.html Friday, July 27, 2007 By Stephen Noll Why the Sexuality Conflict in the Episcopal Church Is God’s Word to the Anglican Communion[1] UPDATE: In September 1997, just ten years ago and one year following the Righter Trial verdict, Anglican bishops from the Episcopal Church and from the Global South gathered in Dallas at the "Anglican Life and Witness Conference," sponsored by the fledgling Ekklesia Society under the Rev. Dr. Bill Atwood, and the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. The relationships formed at this gathering were the beginning of what has become a strong alliance of orthodox Anglicans around the world. ....Continue reading, "The Handwriting on the Wall"

In his recent comments, the Archbishop of York (23 July 07) has stated that sexuality does not involve “core doctrines” of the faith and hence should not be a church-dividing issue. This language of “core doctrine” is reminiscent of the Righter verdict. The address I presented to the bishops at this conference was aimed to show why the Episcopal Church’s position on sexuality was and is indeed a heresy and a threat to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. SN

My dear Archbishops and Bishops and other colleagues:

I am conscious of, and deeply grateful for, the privilege of speaking to you today, because I believe this week may prove a crisis point that will affect the future of the Anglican Communion as a unified worldwide movement. God is, I believe, issuing a challenge to the leaders of Anglicanism that they must respond to or risk his judgment as the Lord of history and the Church (Revelation 2:18-29).

I realize this opening statement may seem very Eurocentric and “parochial,” as though the health of the small American Church were the sine qua non of the health of the worldwide Church. The fact is, problems in the Episcopal Church tend to become symptomatic. As one African bishop put it: when America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold. In the case of the sexuality virus, it has already spread to most Western churches of the Communion, and Southern hemisphere churches will be exposed more and more because of the financial, educational, and media influence of the West.

The Decade of Sexuality in the Episcopal Church

We Anglicans like to think in decades, it seems, as symbolized by the intervals between Lambeth Conferences which have met every ten years since 1888. It shall be my argument that this past decade in the Episcopal Church USA has posed so great a challenge to the Communion that it is genuinely possible that by the year 2008 the Anglican Communion will be a name without substance. Absurd? Reflect on what it once meant to be a member of the British Commonwealth before Britain pledged its troth to the European Community and how little it means now when one is subjected to visa checks just passing through a London airport!

In 1988, the issue of homosexuality seemed but a little cloud on the horizon of Anglicanism. Prior to the 20th century, the Anglican judgment against sexual license of any sort had been so unequivocal that when in 1920 the Lambeth Conference addressed the new world of Sigmund Freud, it did so with seeming assurance:

Recognizing that to live a pure and chaste life before and after marriage is, for both sexes, the unchangeable Christian standard, attainable and attained through the help of the Holy Spirit by men and women of every age, the Conference desires to proclaim the universal obligation of this standard, and its vital importance as an essential condition of human happiness. (Resolution 66)

As recently as 1987, this “unchangeable standard” was reaffirmed with only slight nuancing by the bishops of the Church of England, who stated:

1. that sexual intercourse is an act of total commitment which belongs properly within a permanent marriage relation ship;
2. that fornication and adultery are sins against this ideal, and are to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion;
3. that homosexual acts also fall short of this ideal, and are likewise to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion;
4. that all Christians are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality, and that holiness of life is especially required for Christian leaders.

At its 1988 Convention, the Episcopal Church USA joined in this consensus by reaffirming once again “the Biblical and traditional teaching on chastity and fidelity.” Twenty-nine bishops, however, dissented from this Resolution, and the next year Bishop John Spong of Newark ordained Robert Williams, an avowed, non-celibate, homosexual man to the priesthood.[2]

The decade since has been a time of unraveling in the Episcopal Church.[3] When the Episcopal House of Bishops disassociated itself from Bishop Spong’s act in 1990, he encouraged his assistant bishop Walter Righter to ordain Barry Stopfel, another practicing homosexual, within two weeks of the bishops’ meeting.[4] It was this act that became the focal point of the so-called Righter Trial in 1996. Responding to what we in America call the “in your face” acts of Bishops Spong and Righter, Bishop William Frey proposed a canon at the 1991 General Convention stating that “all clergy of this Church shall abstain from genital relationships outside of holy matrimony.” A majority of bishops voted against this attempt to uphold the Church’s teaching through a binding canon, signaling the unwillingness of Church leaders to stop the sexual radicals’ overt tactic of occupying territory and then calling for negotiations.

This political stalemate has resulted in a paradox that many outside the Church find confusing. The Episcopal Church has simultaneously paid lip service to classic Christian sexual moral norms while allowing rampant violation of those very norms. In 1996, ten bishops attempted to rein in this hypocrisy by presenting Bishop Righter for trial under the disciplinary canon for “holding and teaching publicly or privately, and advisedly any doctrine contrary to that held by this Church.” They lost the case and were stigmatized as “ten men with an agenda,” who were fomenting division in the Church.

The Righter verdict permitted homosexual activists to advance their agenda to a new level: the advocacy of same-sex marriage.[5] The victory of the early 1990’s had been the condoning of gay ordination, but it followed logically that if Barry Stopfel and others were now “wholesome examples” for the flock of Christ, as the ordination rite declared them to be, the Church should provide some formal recognition of their partnerships. Thus although the 1994 General Convention forbade the publication of any same-sex marriage rites, radical priests and bishops have been performing informal ceremonies with increasing boldness. Bishop Douglas Theuner of New Hampshire, for instance, wrote the clergy of his diocese that he would support their officiating at such acts and had done so himself. The homosexual lobby claims that similar rites are being used in a substantial number of dioceses of the Episcopal Church.

This brings us to the General Convention of 1997, which many people saw as decisive for gauging the future direction of the Episcopal Church. The news from the General Convention is ominous but not yet disastrous. On the positive side, with careful planning and much hard work, supporters of the American Anglican Council prevented the Convention from passing any formal and explicit endorsement of the homosexual agenda.[6] It is therefore technically correct to say that the Episcopal Church still affirms the biblical and traditional norms of sexuality and marriage.

But this affirmation on paper does not extend to practice, where “local option” is the accepted order of the day.[7] Openly practicing homosexual laypersons and clergy spoke without reproach at the Convention. A number of bishops made clear that they now permit blessing of same-sex unions in their diocese. As the House of Bishops proposed further study of whether such rites were possible, Bishop Joe Morris Doss of New Jersey was asked whether this further discussion meant that there would be a moratorium on ordaining homosexuals and performing same-sex “b lessings.” “No, it does not,” was his blunt answer. As I shall argue later, this refusal to wait follows necessarily from the revisionists’ claim that homosexuality is a “justice” issue.

The “Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality” was brought to the floor of the House of Bishops for endorsement. By a 2 to 1 vote, the bishops declined to affirm it, “deep-sixing” it by sending it to a committee for further study. The votes at General Convention reveal that the Episcopal bishops are divided 50/50 between those who support the gay agenda and those who do not. It is equally clear that those who support it absolutely refuse to conform to traditional standards and their fellow bishops do not have the power or the will to stop them.

The two main decisions of the July Convention with regard to sexuality were the revision of the canons to remove from power all who oppose the ordination of women and the election of a new Presiding Bishop. The canon revision was significant in that it makes clear that the basis for the new sexual ethic is not diversity, or tolerance during a process of dialogue, but justice, as defined by contemporary North American liberationism.[8]

Let me explain the moral logic of their position. Revisionists read the Bible and the baptismal vow “to strive for justice and peace among all people” (American Book of Common Prayer, page 305) in such a way as to make acceptance of their position morally binding on all. I need to emphasize that they already employ this same logic against those who maintain the exclusive biblical standard of “two sexes, one flesh.”[9] I can confidently predict that if the present trend continues, opponents of homosexual practice will find themselves in the same situation tomorrow as opponents of women’s ordination today. The exclusion of traditionalists follows necessarily from the liberationist conviction that homosexuality is a non-negotiable human rights issue and that opponents of sexual liberation, whether they know it or not, are bigots (i.e., “homophobes” and “heterosexists”).

The election of Frank Griswold as the new Presiding Bishop was a major source of discouragement to many Episcopalians. During the past 12 years, traditional Episcopalians have come to expect that the national Episcopal Church will always support and even promote the program of the homosexual lobby. For instance, the General Convention committee appointed by national church leaders to consider authorizing same-sex “blessing” liturgies voted in favor of such rites 37 to 7 (deputies) and 7 to 0 (bishops); but when the House of Deputies received this committee recommendation, it voted against such authorization. Now that is what I call stacking the deck.

In 1984, when the current Presiding Bishop was elected, his support of the gay-rights agenda was not perceived as a crucial issue.[10] That was not the case this time. Everyone knew in 1997 where the two principal candidates stood on this issue. Bishop Griswold has consistently voted with the sexual revisionists in Church councils and has admitted to ordaining avowed non-celibate homosexuals.[11] In 1994, he signed Bishop Spong’s “Koinonia Statement,” along with 80 other bishops, declaring that he would ordain homosexual persons living in committed partnerships.

You must therefore understand that when biblically-minded Episcopalians talk about withholding money from the national headquarters, it is based on the assumption that the national leadership will continue to promote practices fundamentally contrary to the Gospel. We are open to creative proposals from the new Presiding Bishop, but in the absence of such proposals, we will assume that it is “business as usual” in New York.

Three Reasons Why the Current Sexual Agenda of the Episcopal Church is a Church Dividing Issue

In a recent lecture entitled “A Challenge to Episcopalians,” John Stott gave sage advice as to how we should live in the present crisis. He called evangelicals to “stay in while refusing to give in.”[12] Bishop FitzSimons Allison has put this advice aphoristically as Stay. Don’t Obey. Don’t Pay. Pray. John Stott went on to say that “we must choose the really vital issues on which to protest and fight.”

There are three compelling reasons why the sexuality issue in our Church is decidedly one of those issues over which we must fight.

Rejecting Biblical Authority
The first reason we must fight for traditional sexual norms is that they are clearly taught in Scripture, and the Church that turns away from God’s Word in the Bible undermines the basis of its own authority.

The Lambeth Quadrilateral speaks of the Holy Scripture “as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.” In affirming this, the Quadrilateral expresses the classic Anglican commitment to the primary authority of Scripture in matters of faith and morals (see the Thirty-Nine Articles, especially articles VI and XX). Everything the Church teaches and practices must conform to the revealed Word of God in the Bible. To be sure, some matters are clearer than others in Scripture, and the question of how to harmonize one passage with another can be very complex.

In the case of sexuality, however, the Bible in both Old and New Testaments holds up lifelong, monogamous union of a man and a woman as God’s exclusive norm; it offers no positive examples of non-marital sex; and it specifically condemns fornication and homosexuality as sin. The Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality is thus correct in saying:

5. The whole body of the Scripture bears witness to God's will regarding human sexuality which is to be expressed only within the lifelong union of a man and a woman in (holy) matrimony.

6. The Holy Scriptures are clear in teaching that all sexual promiscuity is sin. We are convinced that this includes homosexual practices, between men or women, between men and women outside marriage as well as heterosexual relationships.

7. We believe that the clear and unambiguous teaching of the Holy Scriptures about human sexuality is of great help to Christians as it provides clear boundaries.

The approval of homosexual practice and same-sex marriage poses one of the clearest challenges to the authority of Scripture in the life of the Church. Only the most strained reasoning can lead one to conclude that the biblical authors would permit, much less endorse, these practices.[13] If the bishops and other leaders of the Church cannot say No to this clear contradiction of biblical norms, it is hard to believe they will ever be able to use the Bible credibly in moral decision-making.[14]

I have been involved for five years in the debate over the use of Scripture in the Episcopal Church.[15] During these years, I have encountered appalling apathy, even antipathy, to the idea that one must search the Scriptures and, when all is said and done, obey the Word of God written.[16] In the Righter trial, the judges, with one exception, simply passed over the body of evidence collected by the presenter bishops that Bishop Righter had knowingly disobeyed his ordination vows to obey the Bible.[17]

In a debate several years ago, I asked a well-known lesbian advocate: “Suppose, for the sake of argument, that it could be shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bible does specifically forbid contemporary homosexual practices. Would it make any difference to you?” “Well, yes,” she replied, “but I would not give up my relationship with my partner because of it.” It is crucial to understand this fact: revisionists enter into “dialogue” with a prior commitment to do what they are going to do regardless of what Scripture says.

Dishonoring Christian Marriage
The second reason why the homosexual agenda is a matter that we must stand against is that it leads to a redefinition of marriage that is in fact a denial of our Lord’s own high doctrine. In his teaching on divorce and his presence at the wedding of Cana, Jesus marked faithful, lifelong monogamous marriage as a sign of his new covenant relationship to the Church. The “mystery of Christ and the Church” to which St. Paul alludes (Ephesians 5:32) is in fact founded on Jesus’ own understanding of his role of bridegroom and savior of his people. Alternatively, Jesus set celibacy, being a “eunuch for the kingdom of God,” as a sign of exclusive love for him. Like Jesus, Paul also calls some Christians to remain unmarried for the sake of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 7:32-35).[18]

In their recent “St. Andrew’s Day” statement, several of England’s leading theologians affirm this understanding of the apostolic faith, stating that the Church

assists all its members to a life of faithful witness in chastity and holiness, recognising two forms or vocations in which that life can be lived: marriage and singleness (Gen. 2.24; Matt. 19. 4-6; 1 Cor. 7 passim). There is no place for the church to confer legitimacy upon alternatives to these.[19]

Thus Church leaders have no authority to devise a third sexual configuration for same-sex couples.[20] The impossibility of this novelty is suggested by the moral innovators’ unclarity about whether to model homosexual relations on marriage or over against marriage. Some gay-rights advocates take a “both/and” approach, affirming the sanctity of marriage and the blessing of alternative sexual unions. Others call for a “new paradigm” for all sexual relationships, homosexual and heterosexual.[21]

The truth is, any new paradigm is utterly at odds with the holy estate of matrimony. Fundamental moral principles and institutions simply do not allow for compromise or third options. The Prayer Book wedding service alludes to a Scripture passage that says: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral [literally ‘fornicators’] and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4). The moral logic of this passage is clear: marriage is honored when it is set apart from other illegitimate forms of sexual activity. Therefore talk of blessing the cohabitation of same-sex or opposite-sex partners dishonors marriage.[22]

Advocates of a new paradigm for marriage have decried sexual exploitation and abuse but have been vague as to what kinds of relationships are acceptable. I have asked them several pointed questions to clarify their position:

· Will they uphold homosexual unions as lifelong?
· Will they uphold premarital chastity as a rule for all Christians?
· Will they condemn sexual relations other than those sanctioned by the Church?
· Will they insist that all persons remain in that state to which they have committed themselves?[23]

No reply. In other words, the Episcopal Church is presently condoning and promoting practices that are in continual flux. As in the case of so many other utopian visions of this waning century, we are being told: “Trust us. We’ll tell you where we’re going once we’ve got there.”

When the Church gives up the norm of exclusive, lifelong marriage of a man and a woman, it undermines the institution in society as well. Many of us in the West know deep down that the abandonment of marital fidelity over the past thirty years as a public expectation is greatly responsible for the confusion and personal pain of so many in our society. We are aware that “no-fault divorce” laws have not only mirrored the breakdown of the family but have contributed to it.[24] We in the Episcopal Church know that the revision of the divorce and remarriage canons in 1973 has led to rampant divorce among clergy and demoralization of the congregations under their care. We know this, but we shrug our shoulders fatalistically, saying: “What can we do? My mother, my best friend, even my priest and bishop, are on their second or third marriage.”[25]

I believe that the Church must regain the lead in this social crisis that is so close to the heart of our Lord’s own teaching and at the root of so much personal pain and loss. We must repent of our past neglect by restoring and revitalizing the doctrine and discipline of marriage.[26] Reforming our practices in the midst of the permissive culture of the West will be no easy task. It is made even more difficult when the national Episcopal Church is intent on undermining the effort. It would be most helpful if the Anglican Communion would provide a counterpoise by offering positive teaching from the biblical and traditional viewpoint.

Embracing a False Spirituality
The third reason that the gay-rights movement in the Episcopal Church presents Anglicanism with a historic test is that it is not just about sexuality but about spirituality. It has been just over 30 years since my conversion to Christ and baptism in the Episcopal Church. During that time, I have been reading continually and widely in works of theology from all sides. What I can tell you with full conviction is that the issue presented to us in the sexuality debate is not just about sex but about the meaning and truth of the Christian faith altogether.[27]

True, there are some folks who hold otherwise orthodox opinions yet differ on matters of sexuality, but most people who stand there are in transition either toward a more traditional or a more revisionist position.[28] If you get in bed with a new periphery one evening, chances are you will wake up next morning in the embrace of a new center. (Or, frightened by the strange bedfellow, you may rush back to your first love.)

The words “sexuality” and “sexual identity” and the so-called “ethic of intimacy” that defines personal identity in terms of sexual satisfaction are part of the revolution in the thinking of late modernity.[29] This revolution begins with the conviction that the Sea of Faith has withdrawn, leaving the world and the human soul empty and infinitely plastic. In the grip of this void, men and women grasp for something that looks like their former spirituality. Falling in love – “Ah, love, let us be true to one another” – and falling into bed are the common substitutes for love of God and love of neighbor.

Sexuality is a surrogate religion. What late modernity takes away with one hand – the divine covenant and purposes of marriage – it offers back with the idea of sex as a sacrament.[30] Anthony Giddens, a secularist and a sociologist, puts it this way:

Sexuality, it could be suggested, gains its compelling quality, together with its aura of excitement and danger, from the fact that it puts us in contact with these lost fields of experience. Its ecstasy, or the promise of it, has echoes of the “ethical passion” which transcendental symbolism used to inspire – and of course cultivated eroticism, as distinct from sexuality in the service of reproduction, has long been associated with religiosity.[31]

It is understandable that those without God will seek to replace him and his institutions with a surrogate. What is deeply troubling is when the same ideas are taught by Christian bishops and theologians. The clearest articulations of the worldview chasm between classic and late-modernist Christianity can be found in the advocates of North American liberation theology, people like Bishop John Spong and Professor Carter Heyward who claim that one’s essence is “to explore the character of the erotic as sacred power” and “to live, to love, to be.”[32]

I must tell you frankly, Bishop Spong and Professor Heyward are not “fringe” figures in the Episcopal Church. This past July at the “Integrity Mass” sponsored by the gay lobby and attended by the Presiding Bishop and many other church officials at the General Convention, the preacher uttered the following profundity:

Our special task, our specific charism, is to help ourselves and the church reclaim the erotic as a central part of our lives … We know in the deepest places of our knowing that the pathways to our spiritual selves are through our erotic selves. We must chart those paths and make those maps available to the larger church. We must begin with awkward strokes to touch the strength of our erotic power.

Whatever this means, it is not Christianity, but it was greeted by many with equanimity and even congratulation. Twenty years ago, who would have imagined the Episcopal Church would be voting on homosexual marriage? Watch out! Unless someone calls paganism by its name, you may be singing “Eros divine, all loves excelling!” at Lambeth 2008.

Venus is a soft goddess, but she has a demonic alter ego, which emerges in the “exotic” excesses of modern sexuality. Camille Paglia, in her flamboyant yet insightful way, argues that the Marquis de Sade is the true prophet of late modern thinking about sexuality.

Humanity has no special status in the universe. Sade asks: “What is man? and what difference is there between him and other plants, between him and all other animals of the world? None obviously.” This is a classically Dionysian view of man’s immersion in organic nature. Judeo- Christianity elevates man above nature, but Sade, like Darwin, assigns him to the animal kingdom, subject to natural force… Since man has no privileges in Sade’s universe, human acts are “neither good nor bad intrinsically.” From nature’s point of view, marital sex is no different from rape.[33]

It is worth noting that several revisionist Episcopalian theologians have left open a place in their moral evaluation of sexuality for such exotic practices as sadomasochism and pornography. [34]

Official proponents of the gay agenda in the Episcopal Church have rightly denounced pedophilia as exploitative. But they also insist that sexual identity, and homosexual “orientation” in particular, is inborn. (Actually, only some of them think this. Others believe sexuality is “socially constructed” and can be chosen.) In any case, it follows that the Church should help young people, even children, identify their particular sexuality, with all options open. Once again, the moral logic of the innovators is impeccable, but their moral conclusions are intolerable. The explosion point for many traditional Episcopalians has come when they have faced the reality that they have to protect their own children from their own Church![35]

The culture of sexual liberation is a new name for an old religion: libertinism. Unlike ancient libertinism, the modern version, “liberationism,” is a highly politicized movement.[36] One may marvel at the adeptness by which the “Integrity” lobby in the Episcopal Church achieved most of its goals in a mere 20 years. But this is not accidental. Liberationism is based on the assumption that all of life is a quest for power and that all articulations of truth clothe a hidden desire by one group to dominate another. Words are, in their view, as malleable as sex. Thus they use slippery rhetoric about “same-sex blessings” and “committed relationships” when they mean “marriage,” and they intimidate traditional Christians by calling them “homophobic” or “heterosexist.” It is for this reason that we who have observed close-up the operation of this ideology warn you who have not: it is foolish to play by the normal rules of deliberation and persuasion when your opponents are playing by a different set of rules.

God has given us several little testimonies in the New Testament about the dangers we now face: I refer to the letters of Jude and John. These books make clear that moral behavior is part and parcel of the Gospel.[37] Jude plainly identifies his opponents, who obviously claimed a high spirituality, as “godless men, who change the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ into a license for immorality” (verse 3). This verse reminds one of Dostoevsky’s observation in The Brothers Karamazov that “if God does not exist, everything is permissible.” Libertinism is thus a sign of practical atheism. Jude’s strategy for dealing with such folk is militant: “contend for the faith once delivered to the saints” by denouncing false teachers, even as you build yourselves up in the holy faith. Similarly, John urges the church to test the spirits, knowing that some spiritualities are in fact the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:1). While we must be careful not to demonize our opponents as persons, the New Testament does encourage us to see ourselves in the midst of a world of contending spirits, some of whom have clothed themselves as an angel of light.[38]

“Come Over and Help Us”

If my analysis of the crisis facing the Episcopal Church is anywhere near accurate, it is crucial for the rest of the Anglican Communion to take notice and “come over and help us.” It has frequently been said in recent years that Third World Anglicans are in a much stronger place spiritually than Westerners and that re-evangelization of the original colonizing nations is called for.[39]

What I am asking for is a special form of this: help us defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ from an attack by a foreign, essentially pagan worldview. Many Third World Christians know from their own recent history the striking difference between worship of nature gods and the one true God. We in the West have forgotten the nature and power of paganism, and so we find it harder to believe that it is cropping up in our midst, especially when it is packaged in terms of liberation of victimized groups and new light breaking forth from God’s word.

In particular, I believe the Lambeth Conference in 1998 offers a decisive opportunity for the wider body of Anglicans to speak clearly on the question of Christian sexual norms. The Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality has already been widely circulated and gratefully received by biblically-minded Episcopalians, even though our House of Bishops chose to sidestep it. I would hope that the Lambeth Conference would declare that the Kuala Lumpur statement represents the historic teaching and the exclusive moral norm of the Church. I highlight the word exclusive because many revisionist leaders use the word “norm” statistically. Yes, of course, they say, marriage is the norm for the heterosexual majority, but there can be another discontinuous norm for the homosexual minority. That is not what the word norm means morally, where it serves as both an ideal and a boundary marker of true faith and order, of following Jesus or turning away from him.

If the Lambeth Conference joins the Third World Anglicans in affirming the Kuala Lumpur Statement, it will give many of us Episcopalians great encouragement. It will help us rebuff the frequent accusations that we are not true Anglicans but fundamentalists and literalists in Anglican garb and that we are the “troublers of Israel” (1 Kings 19:7-18).[40] Let me refer you to this encounter between Elijah and King Ahab in the Old Testament. Who is the true prophet and who the true troubler? God knows. Lambeth can assist by defining the essentials and the limits of what is truly Anglican.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for a larger dialogue on sexuality. Frankly, I am of two minds about such a proposal. On the one hand, I think the biblical and historic norms, as summarized in the Kuala Lumpur statement, are sufficiently clear and relevant, and the Communion might best “just say No” to the agenda being brought to it from the West and get on with the mission of spreading the Gospel. On the other hand, I have no objection in principle to the leaders of the Church reviewing Christian doctrine within the classic formularies and its application to contemporary experience.

But our experience of dialogue in the Episcopal Church should serve as a warning. When the questions are posed and the committees chosen by revisionists in the bureaucracy, the dialogue is skewed and artificial from the beginning.[41] I would urge that any dialogue include a genuinely fair representation of the entire Anglican Communion at all levels.

Even more importantly, I would ask that the Lambeth Conference demand genuine accountability from participants by specifying that no dialogue should take place until all the participants agree to obey the current norms.

To call for dialogue while acting as if a conclusion (and a totally unprecedented one at that!) has already been reached is not real dialogue. What we traditional Episcopalians have experienced in recent years is a kind of double-talk about “continuing the dialogue.” Revisionists call for dialogue even as they violate existing rules, claiming “justice” as their guide. Forgive the analogy, but it is like a terrorist taking over an airplane and then calling for negotiations. So the Lambeth bishops must say to the American Church: “Sure, we’ll talk, but first lay down your weapons!” Sadly, I predict, they will not do that. But that reveals something: they are not really interested in dialogue, they are interested in victory for their cause. Dialogue is a ploy to pacify and distract their opponents while they continue advancing their agenda in the Church.

I am not demeaning these opponents (yes, they are opponents). I am taking them dead seriously, based on their words and deeds over the past 25 years in the American Chu rch. They are contending for the faith as they understand it; it just happens to be a different faith from that delivered to the saints of the New Testament and classic Anglicanism. Perhaps you think I am too pessimistic. Try it! Challenge them to uphold current Anglican standards in word and deed. If they do, I will gladly repent of my pessimism and be part of a true dialogue. That simply has not been our experience here.

Conclusion

After a certain vote in the General Convention that went the way of the moral innovators, someone turned to Bishop William Frey and said: “Well, Bill, I guess the handwriting is on the wall!” “Yes,” Bishop Frey replied, “and it says the same thing it said the first time.” The original handwriting was addressed to a complacent ruling class which had duped its people with idolatry.[42] It read, Mene, Mene, Tekel Parsin: “God has numbered your days and brought it to an end” (Daniel 5:26-28). Is it possible that these are God’s words to the Episcopal Church today? John Stott himself acknowledged that the time might come when a Church so renounced the truth that it would cease to be the Church. Then the Christian’s obligation is to leave. I am sorry to report that many conscientious Episcopalians have reached the conclusion that that time has already come and gone.

But I, along with John Stott, believe that that time has not yet come. Grim as I have made things sound in the Episcopal Church USA, I am actually hopeful for our future. I am hopeful because we have a God for whom all things are possible. I am hopeful because the majority of American Episcopal church people do not support the gay-rights agenda. They are confused and divided in their loyalties. They respect their tradition and their Prayer Book. They also respect and defer to their priests and bishops, many of whom have not been candid with them. I am hopeful because a sizable remnant of leaders are finding their voice to speak out in the name of historic Anglicanism. Finally, I am hopeful because you are here and God has linked us together in this great fellowship of the Gospel in the Anglican tradition.

I subtitled this talk “Why the Sexuality Conflict in the Episcopal Church Is God’s Word to the Anglican Communion,” and I conclude with a warning that failure to deal with the crisis in the Episcopal Church will endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion. Representatives from your provinces, meeting at Kuala Lumpur, have already raised the alarm in your statement on “Anglican Reconstruction.” This is a question that cannot be delayed. What will become of Anglican unity if the American church breaks into two bodies out of communion with each other, with one body officially linked to Canterbury and the other officially committed to Kuala Lumpur? If Anglican leaders look the other way in 1998, such a situation is distinctly possible.

I believe that if the worldwide Communion would speak clearly and forcefully to the American Church, there might be a turning back in our Church to the faith once delivered to the saints. It would hardly be painless and without distasteful conflict, and even division. But if you will send a message to the Church in America, like the Risen Lord’s message to the churches in Revelation, who knows but that what has been so far a Decade of Sexuality might conclude, as it should have been all along, as a Decade of Evangelism? Such a message would encourage the faithful and call those who are lukewarm to rediscover their first love in Christ and his Word.

The handwriting is on the wall. Please spell it out for us, by the grace of God that is given you and the help of the Holy Spirit. Thank you.

Notes
[1] This essay is a revised version of a paper read at the “Anglican Life and Witness” conference in Dallas, Texas, on September 23, 1997. It also appears in Transformation (Winter issue, 1998).
[2] Williams proved an embarrassment to Bishop Spong. Shortly after his ordination, he claimed that “monogamy” was a straitjacket and that everyone, including Mother Teresa, needs sex in order to experience life. These views are not uncommon in the underground gay movement, but they got Williams defrocked when he stated them in public. See Robert Williams, Just As I Am: A Practical Guide to Being Out, Proud, and Christian (New York: Crown, 1992) esp. xi-xxiii.
[3] See Philip Turner, “Episcopal Oversight and Ecclesiastical Discipline,” in Ephraim Radner and R. R. Reno, eds., Inhabiting Unity: Theological Perspectives on the Proposed Lutheran-Episcopal Concordat (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 111-133.
[4] Bishop Righter claimed during his trial that Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning had been consulted about this action and had suggested that Bishop Righter, rather than Spong, officiate.
[5] In my recent book, Two Sexes, One Flesh: Why the Chu rch Cannot Bless Same-Sex Marriage (Solon, OH: Latimer Press, 1997) 13-26, I argue that the terminology of same-sex “blessings” and “unions” camouflages the real intent to introduce a unisex understanding of marriage.
[6] The Convention did authorize dioceses to include “domestic partners,” which includes unmarried lovers of either sex, under church health insurance policies.
[7] On “local option” as a transitional stage toward full mandating of homosexuality, see Two Sexes, One Flesh, 92-93.
[8] In Two Sexes, One Flesh, 53-66, I argue that the liberationist definition of justice is not rooted in any other major traditions of Western justice but is in fact antithetical to them.
[9] In a recent parish newsletter, the Rev. Edgar Wells, Rector of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin (!), New York City, stated that “a self-accepting homosexual person who aspires not to celibacy but to sharing their life with another person is as acceptable for ordination in this diocese as any celibate or married person.” He goes on to say that “our policy is clear, and I could not be on the Commission on Ministry if I did not agree with it.”
[10] Bishop Browning was one of the twenty bishops in 1979 who signed a “Statement of Conscience” announcing that they would not obey or enforce the Church’s official and traditional teaching on sexuality.
[11] In his diocesan newspaper, Anglican Advance (Nov./Dec. 1993), Bishop Griswold is reported to have said: “I believe that it is quite possible for a homosexual person not committed to celibacy to live a wholesome and profoundly Christian life.” In the June/July issue, he stated: “Can the values of the Gospel and the taking up of one’s cross and following Jesus be found in sexual expressions outside marriage and celibacy? … I have to answer ‘yes’ based on my own experience of grace in the lives of persons whose sexuality has been expressed outside these classical and normative categories.” In an interview for Christianity Today (Jan. 10, 1994) 44, he said that he had ordained homosexual priests: “The question with respect to sexuality is, How is this person’s sexuality part of their living of the gospel.”
[12] This lecture, given in Falls Church, Virginia, in February 1997, has been circulated by EFAC-USA (P.O. Box 110, Hague, VA 22469; 1-800-472-2593) and published in The Episcopal Evangelical Journal 1/8 (Jan. 1998) 7-9.
[13] In his recent William Tyndale: A Biography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) 239, David Daniell expresses Tyndale’s and Anglicanism’s “plain sense” critique of scholastic hermeneutics, which “can become a licence to what is little more than wilder forms of free association, whereby words can mean anything, according to whim.” The attempts to root homosexual practice in Paul’s hymn to love (1 Corinthians 13) while ignoring his teaching on the shape of Christian relationships (1 Corinthians 6:9-20) is an example of contemporary scholasticism at its worst.
[14] Cf. Two Sexes, One Flesh, 40.
[15] See, e.g., my “Reading the Bible as the Word of God,” in Frederick H. Borsch, ed., The Bible’s Authority in Today’s Church (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1993) 133-167.
[16] In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer (Dec. 28, 1997), Bishop Frank Griswold employs the following rationalization for the Church to contradict the Bible: “Broadly speaking, the Episcopal Church is in conflict with Scripture… The only way to justify it is to say, well, Jesus talks about the Spirit guiding the church and guiding believers and bringing to their awareness things they cannot deal with yet [John 16:13]. So one would have to say that the mind of Christ operative in the church over time … has led the church to in effect contradict the words of the Gospel.” Bishop Spong in his Nov. 12, 1997 letter to the Anglican Archbishops, uses the same argument and proof-text.
[17] See Two Sexes, One Flesh, 34-35, n. 20.
[18] This interchange was with Virginia Mollenkott at the 50th annual Witness conference held at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa., in October 1992. For other examples of open rejection of the plain teaching of Scripture, see Two Sexes, One Flesh, 38-39.
[19] The St. Andrew’s Day Statement: An Examination of the Theological Principles Affecting the Homosexuality Debate (Church of England Evangelical Council, 1995) was written by a theological working group including Michael Banner, F.D. Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology at King’s College, London; Markus Bockmuehl, University Lecturer in Divinity at Cambridge University; Oliver O’Donovan, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford University; and David Wright, Senior Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh.
[20] According to the Thirty-Nine Articles, “The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith; and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Sc