I'm still curious: What are the protections for those opposed to Women's Ordination? Are they even giving us any? Or have the liberals finally decided that they intend to purge us from the ranks?
This is a tragedy of monumental proportions. Where is the faith once handed down for all the ages? Have we become mongrel dispensationalists? Were we previously in the male bishop dispensation? Are we now in the dispensation of women bishops? Is the next dispensation the gay marriage dispensation? I pray for a remnant to uphold the unity of the orthodox faith.
So what is the orthodox response to this? A move to an ACNA dor the UK? The formation of an orthodox Anglican Communion? Or do we stick it out and outwait the progressives?
So what is the orthodox response to this? If history tells us anything about the future in this regard, there will be little to no orthodox "response." I don't see Anglicans as having much in the way of "response" in their DNA, and I candidly acknowledge this as a latter-day Anglican who came into it from the outside. The fissiparousness of low-church Protestants has this very much in its favor: those who will never agree waste little of their time and money contending against one another for control of the institutional levers of power. A move to an ACNA dor the UK? I don't understand what's written here. Working on a guess, then, I imagine a move toward or into the ACNA (if you're in North America, of course). I don't know if there are any options in the UK. Benedict made an offer to orthodox Anglicans, but it amounted to their ceasing to be Anglican and becoming, instead, Anglicanique Romans. The ACNA (as presently constituted and "aimed") is likely already compromised. It has already decided that sex and church office are ultimately irrelevant to one another, and this was the modern slope down which Anglicanism has been sliding since the the Lambeth Conference in the 1930s somewhere endorsed birth control. Outside peel-offs from TEC, the REC is one of the largest constituent groups within the ACNA, and the REC does not ordain women. My presbyter brothers within the REC seem to think that it's a temporary marriage of convenience, and that orthodoxy vis-a-vis sex and ordination will eventually prevail. Christian charity makes me hope so; watching ecclesiastical history tends to quench that hope. The formation of an orthodox Anglican Communion? Well, this is what GAFCON was moving toward, according to many Anglican lights I read here and there. It's been slow work, and GAFCON coninues to maintain all sorts of institutional bonds to a Canterbury-centric Anglicanism. In light of recent developments (Admin's interesting turn of phrase!), I'm not sure such bonds offer much hope either. Or do we stick it out and outwait the progressives? This course of action is exactly what the "progressives" hope will happen. It was all the progressives in TEC needed for them to prevail. It is all the progressives in the UK needed for them to prevail. It is all that any progressives in any ecclesial structure need in order to prevail.
Our response has to be to unite and make an unflinching apostolic wall to the unbelieving world. I don't know what other answer there may be. I am glad we are now in GAFCON, as it's a start. ACNA has to sort out a some of its lack of a principled stand on apostolic truth, although the REC appears to be rock-solid.
Spherelink, I note from your member info that you were born when ECUSA (TEC's earlier acronymic label) was beginning to shed orthodox parishes over women's ordination and the revision of the 1928 Prayer Book. I don't know if you've had a chance to go back and read the history of those years or not. I'm no historian and I can't recommend an authoritative source. In various places around the internet, you can find histories summarized by this or that clergyman in The Continuum (the term loosely applied to themselves by those who departed ECUSA). Among the Continuers ("those who continued in the traditional orthodox Anglican faith) there were many who strove mightily "to unite and make an unflinching apostolic wall to the unbelieving world," as you put it. Sadly, the results were not very enduring. The alphabet soup of American former-ECUSAns almost seems to span every letter of the alphebet! The REC couldn't gather them in; they could never get past their various distinctives. It seems that American Prayer Book Christianity was already a very big tent -- not merely in the sense of a hugely broad swath of theological opinion, but also in terms of churchmanship, everything from almost Puritans to almost Romans and everything in between. To one viewing this chaotic period of American Anglicanism through eyes largely accustomed to non-Anglican Christianity, it ~appears~ that as each little chunk flew off from ECUSA, it determined it would cozy up to no one who didn't perfectly match its own version of Anglicanism. For the UK readers here (including our hosts?), I'd report that these Continuers (as I've read them, as I've conversed with some of the old-timers here and there) felt a genuine sense of betrayal by Canterbury and UK prelates generally when Cantuar did not reign in the American apostates. But how wasCantuar to do that when, as I pointed out above, it had little in its own history to guide it on such an enterprise? Whether the umbrage Continuers take is justified or no, Jesus will sort out eventually. But, umbrage they do indeed feel, and as the evolution of the English Church in the UK has continued since those days, the old timers here in North America are prone to saying "Well! Now we know why, don't we!" When the wheels fall off, it's almost axiomatic to retreat to the garage, to seek how to put it back on. I honestly don't think there's a lot of hope in that direction. And, that doesn't mean I know what is really going to help. I expect my kids will find out by the time they reach my years, and I'll find out too, though from heaven. And, the Lord may have all sorts of plans afoot that will surprise everyone. If the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever, it should follow that our Lord's Body, the Church, should possess some discernible identity down through the ages. Those who are His find one another, even if they must do so by groping in the dark.
Small responses cast long shadows when the sun is setting--let's not settle for that. We must rise above forum, blog, and oped responses. Our response must be fundamental and radical. It begins with basics. There cannot be an orthodox response when there doesn't seem to be unanimity on an Orthodox identity. We must rediscover the fundamental non-negotiables regarding orthodoxy--and radically uphold this standard. Have we outlined the substance of that identity in this forum? After the identity is firmed up, we must strengthen and erect seminaries that unfailingly stamp this identity on the called. To my knowledge, only the REC is training men with the idea of upholding Orthodoxy in the US. We need to rally around it. How did the Jesuits take back so much of Germany after it had been converted to Luther's teachings? Surely they didn't bicker amongst themselves about what it meant to be a Roman Catholic, as her empire receded? Didn't they establish teaching strongholds that churned out militant clergy? Why aren't we as battle-hard as they were?
I respect the extensive study you seem to have made of the history of fragmentation of the TEC break-offs. I can't, however resign myself to hopelessness. Clearly the break-offs may have shown a lot of pride in subscribing to "it's my own version of Orthodoxy or the highway," but that doesn't mean that there doesn't exist an objective, true orthodox identity. Help us identify what that is! There are tremendous historical presedents wherein the church has come back from the brink. Heck, the church was entirely Arian for a time! Let us reach back to these examples and learn how men better than us helped the church come back from the brink.
@Fr. Bill maybe you could provide some of the best of those Continuum histories you'd mentioned, so that we can learn from past mistakes. on the other hand I don't think I am advocating the return to the alphabet soup schismatic anarchy. I think we need to unite, and if we go by what you say, its opposite to the 70-80s where "each little chunk would cozy up to no one who didn't perfectly match its own version of Anglicanism."
How-and-ever They consider us fools, first of all Anglicans are Catholics, good catholics, bad catholics or indifferent ones. Just the same as Rome, only somewhat better. For instance, our Bishops might have, been misled for whatever reasons, or might have totally lost the plot as far as the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is concerned but they are still catholic and descendants of the apostles. At the Council of Trent, 1564, the Bishops of the new, Holy Roman Catholic Church, surrendered their responsibilities as bishops of the Church of God on to the shoulders of the Bishop of Rome and what with that abandonment of their responsibilities, the new Trent Creed, they lost surely their apostolic characture. There's no doubt that amongst the Liberals there's a been a great effort through the press and t.v., towards abandonment of the old verities, this has been taken up , certainly by U.K. the establishment to bolster afailing credibility, all to easily wrecked by greed and hedonism Rome never stops trying.However, we would be simply moving from one lame duck to another!
I wouldn't agree as to the above, the Holy Roman Church is a Catholic Sect in that they have added to the Creed and to the faith and are in great error. This is as far as they go and I personally cannot say that even if they would take me, I would join em. As far as the Orthodox Church ?, Most of the clerics I have met have been quite arrogant, that's irritating , but for me the interesting thing is that they hold a clearer view of the faith than Rome does! That the Europeans among them adopt the ethnic attitudes of their particular church is another reason for my reluctance. Otherwise, as I have repeatedly said, I think traditional Anglicanism is Western Orthodoxy in Dogma!
That the Europeans among them adopt the ethnic attitudes of their particular church is another reason for my reluctance. When it looked very much as if we were going to have to step away from ECUSA (as they called themselves in those days), when Gene Robinson was elected bishop and it seemed almost certain that consents for his consecration were going to fly through the house of bishops, I began looking for alternatives, including Orthodoxy. Honestly, the only parish that seemed to be somewhat American in its cultural clothing was Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon's parish in Chicago. We live in Texas. And, all the Orothodox parishes in North Texas (so far as we could identify them) were ethnic fortresses as much as (or more than) they were congregations of Christians. Otherwise, as I have repeatedly said, I think traditional Anglicanism is Western Orthodoxy in Dogma! My wife -- sympathetic to the need to move out of ECUSA -- looked at Orthodoxy, admired much of what she saw, but ended up asking me "Do we really need to travel to another continent and go back another millennium to find a church?" She had a point. And, with my own personal history -- seminary education, a decade of pastoral ministry among American Protestants, another decade and a half of ministry in an Episcopal context -- well, starting over in one of the Continuing churches was daunting, to be sure, but it was certainly something to consider seriously before opting for Orthodoxy. And the result ended up being St. Athanasius Anglican Chuch, where the priest and every one of his flock will candidly tell you that they are refugees from late 20-th Century American evangelicalism, which is rapidly morphing into something truly bizarre. I do not think the future of the English Reformation here in North America depends on our "stealing sheep" from other communions. It would be enough that we become and maintain a sinewy expression of Western catholic Christianity. With such an identity, we could (and should) do two things: (1) evangelize the unbelievers in our land, who are numerous, and (2) offer refuge to those dismayed souls within broadly evangelical American Protestantism who are dismayed at the deplorable developments in their own ecclesiastical climes, but do not see anything "out there" that looks like the old-time religion except the Roman church.
I once took lessons at an Orthodox Church near where I live, virtually he taught what my High church parish priest taught. However, when he said that we Anglicans, ceased to be Catholic in 1054 A.D. I lost interest. . Even so , I was astounded that we had so very little difference in the faith. I don't mind the millennium, Anglicanism goes back as well , according to the Latin Councils of the West, Pisa etc, when they were chasing popes, the English Church was given precedence on account of Christianity being brought here by Arimathea and the first Christian / Catholic Bishop being S. Paul's friend Aristobulos.
The key issue for me would be the safe-guards for those who are theologically opposed to women priests/bishops. Not only are they robust on paper, but do they function in practice? For such to work it would require a serious commitment to mature tolerance and compassion from both sides, and given the current state of the church I think I might be better off wishing for the moon. I hope I am wrong.
The whole question is simply can women take their place as the descendants of the Apostolic College as Bishops?We're not discussing Methodism or United Reform, we are talking about women within the Episcopate of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, or as Moss has it ,'to the official ministry of the visible church!'Whilst they will have been ordained to a ministry i.e. Methodism or Lutheranism the question is, will they have Apostolic Succession in the Episcopate.
Obviously, there is a difference of theological views on that issue. Personally, I prefer an all male priesthood let alone bishops, but I realise that I am in a minority. Given that this is primarily a theological dispute rather than a moral one, and that each side is genuinely attempting to ground its view in scripture, I am all for allowing (if possible) variation of opinion rather than schism. Thus, for me, the key issue is safeguards. And that is where I fear the church will let its members down.
Dear Pog, The Anglican Church is not a Christian Sect, it is a Communion of Catholic Believers within the Body of Christ.Not the whole church, simply a fragment! We exist on Revelation, Scripture and the Councils. There is nothing at all in any of the above sections to suggest that women have a liturgical position with the church, never mind a dominant one such as bishops play!