Vice-Regal Saint: A proper church once more?
Orthodox bishops declare the end of the worldwide Anglican communion
THERE IS NOTHING AN ENGLISH COUNTRY LORD LOVES, wrote Macaulay, so much as his good English church. Those who will love her, and keep a weather eye open for her health, and who will guide her back to the pastures of orthodoxy, have seemed of late, however, as thin on the ground as an anorexic sunbathing.
So whilst one is not absolutely sure how to take the news of this morning, it seems a start, and better than the unhealthy drift hitherto. Let us have an honest Anglican Church again. I have nothing necessarily against anyone wishing to have a church that subscribes to *their* views, rather than the other way around - which is, after all, merely what the liberals have childishly wrought. But it seems a bit thick for them to do it in someone else’s name, on someone else’s premises.
I only hope the Africans, in the name of cleaving rightly to the truth of the ages, do not abandon those in the States, Canada and England who feel quite as besieged as they do. If they are to snap themselves off from the West, do not let that be an end: rather, let us co-operate and rebuild the institution here. God knows it is needed like never before.
Posts
1915.jpg){kind=small}
.gif)
.gif)
2 comments:
The Church has held many things as "the truth of the ages" which were later discerned to be not so.
Slavery and the persecution of Jews come to mind.
Let the schismatic Calvinists go their way. "No man puts new wine into old wine-skins, or the skins will be burst by the wine,
and the wine and the skins will be wasted; but new wine has to be put into new wine-skins."
But never, Social/Ecclesial, the central tenets of the faith that we found in our Creeds, etc.
That much of North American Anglicanism has begun its descent into gnosticism and relativism is unequivocally true, is it not?
And when men like John Spong are permitted to parade about as bishops; when the US Church antagonistically elevates a female minister to the rank of Presiding Bishop merely as a way to affront those orthodox Anglicans who have perfectly valid theological objections to female ordination; when rogue bishops put their own agendas ahead before the good of the church by blessing same-sex unions whilst having recently accepted (kind of, I guess, maybe...) the Windsor Report.... When these things are happening, it is perfectly valid to question the will of the Anglican Communion to survive as a united assembly of orthodox Christians.
I mourn the rupture and decline of the Anglican Communion - the thought of Anglicanism without Canterbury is appalling. But the faith comes first.
Of course it is true that many 'conservatives' are fuelled by emotional and cultural insecurity, just as it is surely true that many liberals are merely antagonistic and petulant. Which makes the whole damned thing very sad indeed.
But for those lovingly trying preserve Christian orthodoxy within the Anglican tradition, I have deep respect and admiration.
M
Post a Comment