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Archbishop Peter Jensen's Christmas Message 2011 on the centrality of Jesus to human history
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You may have read my post this morning on the understanding of the term 'historic episcopate' in the ACNA constitution. Archbishop Rowan Williams' Reflections on the 2009 TEC General Convention has so incensed me that I am compelled to respond with a second post for today.
It seems that the Archbishop of Canterbury has lost the plot, when he claims that resolutions D025 and C056 "do not have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria, if the wording is studied carefully". It is bad enough when the Americans obfuscate with ambiguous language, but it is a travesty of singular proportion when the leading Primate of the Anglican Communion should not only be beguiled by the subtleties of the TEC resolutions but create his own mischief with reckless indifference to the main issue at hand.
Apart from the plain reading of the text of the resolution D025, to which I referred last fortnight, my immediate concern is his attempt to consider that the whole row over sexuality can be reduced to concerns about the blessing of same-sex unions and, by extension, the ordination of such persons in same-sex unions.
[T]he issue is.about whether the church is free to recognise same-sex unions by means of public blessings that are seen as being, at the very least, analogous to Christian marriage. (§6)
No so m'lord! The row is about the authority of Scripture which declares the practice of homosexuality to be a sin. Resolution 1.10 (1998 Lambeth Conference) rejected "homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture". The resolution "recognises that there are members of the Church who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation…seeking.
pastoral care, moral direction of the Church and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of their relationships". The clear implication is that these are not practising homosexuals, but "believing and faithful persons""”they believe in the teaching of Scripture and they are faithful to it. The opposition to the blessing of same-sex unions is that such an enterprise would be the blessing of sin, or what Jim Packer has called the 'sanctification of sin'.
However, listen to the twisting of this resolution by Archbishop Rowan:
t needs to be made absolutely clear that, on the basis of repeated statements at the highest level of the Communion's life, no Anglican has any business reinforcing prejudice against LGBT people, questioning their human dignity and civil liberties or their place within the body of Christ.
(§5, emphasis added)
LGBT persons are sexually active lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people. They do not represent faithful Christians who may experience homosexual orientation but commit themselves to abstain from fulfilling such desires and repent when they fall short of that commitment. It is practising homosexuals whom the apostle Paul describes as among the unrighteous, who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor 6:9-11). I prefer to stand with the apostle than with the Archbishop of Canterbury and I consider I would not be doing the Lord's business if I did not consider it my business to warn those who disobey God's word on this, or any other matter affecting salvation, that they are in grave peril and without repentance cannot be considered members of the body of Christ.
PHOTO: Steve Punter
There are many who for whatever reasons are in unhappy marriages but who stick at it believing that is what God commands and praying for themselves and their spouse to be given the grace to be united in the love which they professed on their wedding days.
The ability to divorce, remarry and try again, makes many others try less hard. But St Paul tells us that a married couple is one flesh? how can this church cleave one flesh in two again?
As I read it homosexual practice while sinful is not condemned by our Lord, the remarraige of divorced persons is.
However for the first 400 years Anglicanism held to no divorce after marriage. the position of teh Reformed ( tha the innocent party may re-marry) is not even observed by those who accept divorce. No fault divorce widespread throughout Anglicanism, but no one raises a protest against divorced and re-married bishops.
I do not believe that you are correct in claiming that the Archbishop of Canterbury has lost the plot. His comment in paragraph #1 to "an insistence at the highest level that the two most strongly debated resolutions (DO25 and CO56) do not have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria, if the wording is studied carefully" is best regarded as a reference to the letter sent to him on 16 July by the TEC's President of the House of Deputies and the Presiding Bishop. This letter can be read at: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/D025_letter_to_Archbishop.pdf
The Archbishop's own "realistic" assessment of the DO25 is given in paragraph #2 which is that the majority of the TEC has repudiated the request for moratoria, although a significant minority have not.
Nor does the Archbishop sit lightly to the authority of Scripture. His comments in paragraphs #7, #8 and #17 clearly acknowledge that the actions of the TEC do challenge the place of Scripture as they contravene the consensus reading of Scripture not just in the Anglican Communion but in the wider Church Catholic.
I think that the better criticism of the Archbishop's reflections is that made by the Bishop of Durham, which is that they do not extend to the practical response to the TEC's actions in "walking apart". The Bishop of Durham's comments can be read at: http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=453
Regards, Roland