A couple of new links re the Primates' Meeting to read carefully.
There are lots out there (e.g. the list here).
Christopher Wells of The Living Church writes something close to my heart (as posted here recently) when he reflects on catholicity and apostolicity in the PM's communique. Verdict: not much progress.
Secretary-General Josiah Idowu-Fearon gives some inside oil on the Primates' Meeting, attempting to bust some myths and derail some legend making (H/T B. Walton). I note that he acknowledges a moment in the meeting when the primates thought a way forward was "to let two different Anglican Communions get on with their lives without having to worry about offending the other." The miracle of the meeting is that the primates resiled from this option and chose instead to walk together, to remain in unity. I wonder if the howls of outrage about the suspension of TEC from aspects of Communion life would soften if the howlers were to recognise that the alternative would be a completely different set of global Anglican arrangements in which TEC would not be part of the larger of two Anglican Communion? But the most important insight in Idowu-Fearon's article concerns the understanding he brings as to what life for an African Anglican primate is like.
26 comments:
"I wonder if the howls of outrage about the suspension of TEC from aspects of Communion life would soften if the howlers were to recognise that the alternative would be a completely different set of global Anglican arrangements in which TEC would not be part of the larger of two Anglican Communion?' - Dr. Peter Carrell -
If the 'alternative' were to have been the outcome, Peter, it could well be that your proposed 'larger of the Anglican Communions' may not include either the Mother Church of England or even the ACANZP. This could be one example of the bon mot: "Smaller is Better" - simply because more open to the loving mercy of God for ALL people.
Or would you have ACANZP become part of a homophobic GAFCON communion?
I am mindful of today's theme: "To be a Light to lighten the Gentiles", which is what Jesus and the Church are all about; not a 'Holy Huddle' but a community of Sinners Redeemed.
Yes, Peter, I think that the howlers do realise this, but most are keen synodicalists too impatient with prelates and with too low an ecclesiology of Communion to care. More consequentially, even howlers with a more sober ecclesiology have not recognised the contradiction between a positivism of revelation in which God speaks whenever Episcopalians vote and the reality that in a Communion doctrine is accredited as true when and only when it is received by all. Thus a balloon of narcissism jabbed by a needle is blowing about the room bouncing off walls and windows.
Sooner or later, Anglicans will need an agreed practice of final reception. Conservatives do not appear to be much clearer about this than liberals. It just happens that, this time, it was the liberals who lost.
Bowman Walton
No, Ron, I would not be keen on ACANZP being part of GAFCON led "Anglican Communion", just as I am not keen on ACANZP being part of a TEC led " Anglican Communion" because neither Communion would have the breadth of the current one.
In the current Communion all have a just to listen to each other as occurred at the Primates Meeting. In a smaller Communion I imagine we would all sing in unison to a narrow range of congenial choruses!
In particular it concerns me that if Africa breaks away, then all chance of Anglican voices such as your own being heard by them would be lost forever.
Yes, Peter, when E. P. Iscopalisn's squadron flies over Uganda, there should certainly be a big parachute for Father Don. He would enjoy the dive, the Ugandans below are hospitable, and at the very least they would admire his unusual cap.
The least imaginative connection of the dots is that, in well-balanced provinces, *the Grand Choice between TEC and GAFCON* is a figment of the overheated imaginations of happy warriors who cannot return to the boredom of peaceful, civilian life without a cause. Much to their frustration, the foreseeable Communion will be well Anglican-- fuddy duddy moderate rather than revolutionary or gafconian, and reactive rather than proactive. Strong liberal blocs may press their provinces to additionally join the Union of Utrecht, just as some provinces are formally also part of GAFCON. A few could belong to all three.
Bowman Walton
Don't mistake my deepest motivation here, Peter. It is not my intention that GAFCON break away. It is rather, that they should seek, peacably, to live and let live with other Provinces in a Communion that is large and eirenic enough to accommodate one another's adiaphoral differences.
I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of intentional schism. It is neither the will of the Lord of the Church, nor of TEC, or any other Province that seeks to live in, and make sense of the proclamation of the liberating 'Good News of Christ' to ALL in the modern world.
(By the way, Bowman's tilt at 'Father Don' has passed me by - too subtle, perhaps?)
Hi Bowman
I am reliably informed that millions of moderate Anglicans resent extremist and somewhat judgmental criticism of them, encapsulated in the phrase "fuddy duddy."
Please desist from these cruel jibes.
:)
I think Bowman means, Ron, that were you to visit the Anglican church in Uganda you would be warmly welcomed, and that if you were to wear some of the least familiar of Anglo-Catholic attire, it would nevertheless be admired appreciatively.
I am glad none of the three of us wish schism on the Communion.
There is, BTW, a view widely accepted up here, that the C22 Church will be Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal, with Anglicans reabsorbed by Rome. It supposes that the Anglican Communion will never reach a consensus on doctrinal authority, so that the consequential debates over the urgent issues of the C21 all happen in Rome where, eventually, some clear decision does get made. Just as Anglicans often invoke Roman social teaching as if that were their own teaching, so they may also begin to invoke Roman teaching on sex, political theology, etc. Over time, pastors who need more than a communique or a Lambeth resolution to ground their practise could find themselves relying on better articulated papal decisions. At some point, practical reliance on the Roman magisterium becomes actual reunion.
In the case of SSM, the basic issue is: how should churches who understand marriage in the traditional way respond to civil legislation that defines it differently? Rome's implemented answer to that question will set social limits on the ways in which other churches can or even want to answer it. And in failing to invoke a more than procedural basis for their rejection of the TEC innovation, the Primates failed to settle Anglicanism's authority problem. Every time Anglicans claim an impractically low degree of authority for their decisions, or set them on too narrow a basis, they take a small step toward the reunion scenario.
Bowman Walton
Thanks Bowman (for 10.15 am)
I am going to make it the basis of my next post!
[Apologies, Bowman, my finger on my phone found its way to the button below the PUBLISH button, hence my need to publish your latest under my name).
FROM BOWMAN WALTON
Yes, Peter, I see the resentful moderates on my front lawn with pitchforks (!) and news crews. I will make a public apology as soon as my staff has finished reviewing it with our lawyers.
While we wait for that, I should point out that those resentful moderates out there may be our only hope of getting some decision made about making decisions.
Anglican liberals hasten the reunion scenario by fearing and loathing anything that looks like emergent authority. In fact, *religion without authority* is not an implausible motto for the dream of several free spirits at Thinking Anglicans. In TEC, many are refugees from the Bible Belt or from Rome; in CoE, a generation that waited too far long for the consecration of women and is mortified by the CoE's *quadrupal lock* is decidedly populist. But their expectation that we are all being unified by the ever-clearer lineaments of the approaching future is not unrelated to the limited capacity of all of our brains for imagining it. The more of that *religion without authority* they get in the short run, the nearer we all draw to the Man in White in the long run.
But Anglican conservatives also hasten the reunion scenario by refusing the cognitive risk of recognising real change. If you refuse to see the rain out your window, you won't have to admit that you need an umbrella and haven't got one. To a sexual revolution that swept the world in the 1960s, the conservative response is that it should still be the 1950s and those who insist on living in the 2010's deserve whatever confusion they have. GAFCON's Jerusalem Declaration was meant as an identity statement rather than as a standard of teaching and practise, but as an inventory of very old things conservatives really like about the Church of England, it offers guidance only to time-travelers.
In this respect, it is, from an evangelical perspective, a great disappointment that although the word "Scripture" does appear in the communique, the Primates did not review TEC's scriptural case for its innovation, or at least endorse the work of someone trustworthy who did. The impression given-- more perhaps than by TEC's task force report-- is that a conclusion was reached with only a mild concern for what the scriptures actually say. No pope has been that sloppy with the Word of God since the Second Vatican council.
Statement ready. BBC arrived. Ok, here goes...
Bowman Walton
Pitchforks and paparazzi. I would rather have jumped out of a plane over Uganda.
Anyway, Peter, my final thought before I look forward to your next OP is that, whilst we have every reason to be grateful to God that the Primates made a decision to walk together despite their differences, we need a theological centre that is more broadly useful to the Communion. Well-facilitated interpersonal diplomacy is first aid, not surgery and recovery.
Father Ron's desire for the Communion to be "eirenic enough to accommodate one another's adiaphoral differences" sounds reasonable. But I have seen firsthand that to the most synodicalist among us, *everything* is an adiaphoron and so nothing is real. And even an overwhelming majority of provinces cannot convince a determined few at each end of the spectrum that something that they want to change is beyond their reach. At some point, the accumulation of eccentricities leaves us closer to various ecumenical partners than to our own Communion.
Bowman Walton
Just as food for thought. A lot of people compare the perception and treatment of women within the church as analagous to the issue at hand now.
Although I don't personally associate the two in all aspects - accepting though that they are both examples where present cultrual attitudes changing in church and society necessitated a discernment whether this viewpoint was consistent with scripture and the teachings of the church.
In NZ women were given the vote in 1893, the first wormen ordained in NZ was in 1971 after the Anglican Consultative Council voted to accept the ordination of women. That is over 75 years!!
Now while I am not advocating waiting 75 years, given SSM has only been legal in NZ how long? ... perhaps keeping to the current doctrines and allowing some 'space' as requested by the Primates isn't really that much of a bad decision.
It was interesting also to read the report from the Canadian Primate, while obviously expressing regret for those in his province feeling hurt by the outcome, there was an indication from him of his growth in understanding of needing to be aware of how the alteration of doctrines influence the whole Communion.
I don't think it is appropriate Ron to suggest a Communion made up of those who would accept SSM unequivocably now would be the one showing the "loving mercy of God for ALL people" - because it infers those not included in this comment would not. I know enough of the Church in Asia, South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa to question whether placing a unilateral doubt on their love for all God's people is warranted.
"to accommodate one another's adiaphoral differences" This comment by Ron Smith surprises me. I would have thought that Ron would be of the view that "marriage equality" is a matter of justice which is not adiaphora. Or is it?
"Anglican liberals hasten the reunion scenario by fearing and loathing anything that looks like emergent authority. In fact, *religion without authority* is not an implausible motto for the dream of several free spirits at Thinking Anglicans" - Bowman Walton -
My riposte to this atatement might be enswered by the words of Jesus about authority: "You have only One teacher - The Christ. He who is greatest amoing you must be your servant (Matthew 23:11).
And, for John (Sandeman). You may have mistaken the thrust of my comment about 'Marriage' being adiaphoral. It is a relationship of two persons that is exclusive to this world only, and will be super-ceded at the 'Marriage Feast of the Lamb', where there will be no sex or gender differential. As Marriage (for St. Paul) was also an optional extra - not meant for everyone as part of their recognition of Christ in their lives, and certaionly not necessary for the purpose of redemption, it can be considered 'adiaphora'.
Hi Ron,
Respectfully, you have not answered Bowman's point at all.
His point is that some Anglicans fear "authority" which in this context is the authority of the whole church to determine what the teaching of Christ it.
So to reply by citing that Christ alone is our authority avoids the matter of what Anglicans do when we disagree about what we think Christ teaches.
Either that, or you are implying that each of us may determine for ourselves what Christ's teaching means.
I find that possibility difficult to square with "catholicity."
"So to reply by citing that Christ alone is our authority avoids the matter of what Anglicans do when we disagree about what we think Christ teaches. Either that, or you are implying that each of us may determine for ourselves what Christ's teaching means.
I find that possibility difficult to square with "catholicity."
- Dr. Peter Carrell -
Peter. Our true catholocity in purely 'en Christo'. There are so many other claimed 'catholicities' - Anglicanism is only one of them - that one has really to look to the basic reality of what that word means, in terms of allegiance to Christ. There is only ONE Baptism, One Faith and One Lord. I really don't think God is going to isolate us into different little groups based on our own perceived sectarian catholicities. Otherwise, one might ask which Catholics God is going to accept as faithful to God's call on their lives.
Another thought here, which I suggest impinges on your question of our personal responsibility to a worldly magisterium; takes me back to the recent advice given to a Lutheran woman, married to a Roman Catholic, by Pope Francis. When she mourned the fact that she was not allowed to receive the Catholic Eucharist with her husband; Pope Francis advised her to listen to her conscience. Was he, in fact, inferring that each one of us is actually responsible for what we believe God's call is upon us - bearing in mind the fact that we are often perceived as being bound by a common doctrine? I suspect that Pope Francis was saying that, if she believed Christ were actually presence in the Sacrament, who was he to say she was denied access.
This seems to be the basis of Catholic resistance to those who cannot accommodate that theology. (I know, from persoan lexperience).
I can admit to you that, when I am in a situation of no access to my own tradition of sacramental access in another city; I have no problem about receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in a Roman Catholic Church. After all, my loyalty is to the Christ to whom I am bonded by my Baptism, and Whom I recognise in the Roman Mass. That is the measure of my 'catholicity' - which, in this matter, is personal.
Thank you, Jean, for spotting something hugely important. In many discussions of SSM, we are getting the relation of Church and state under God exactly backwards. We are rendering to Caesar what is God's and to God what is Caesar's.
When we consider SSM as a matter of justice, we are having a political discussion about the law in some particular place. Like other laws for women's suffrage, single payer health insurance, gun safety, limits on carbon emissions, etc SSM is something that only states can institute. Each of these laws has a religious meaning for us-- everything has a religious meaning for us-- but so does the divine calling of te state itself.
God creates states to make local determinations about the way justice can best be achieved in the culture and institutions of a particular territory. In so doing, states compare alternate understandings of a particular injustice, and alternate paths to reducing or eliminating it in its local context. And as some of us read scripture, the diversity of local contexts is also God's will. If God's purpose were to have all live under the same laws and living in the same way, then he would have sent angels to help us finish Babel, and the Bible would have been a small pamphlet.
The problem with viewing support for SSM as a churchly adiaphoron is that it gets the Church-state relationship exactly backwards. The Church witnesses to the gospel of Christ which is stable and universal-- true for God and true for us; true in New Zealand and true in Uganda. The Church has a duty to be visible and unified throughout the world to the praise and glory of his Name. However from place to place local states adapt human moral sentiments to local conditions, inevitably increasing the variety of laws and practises in the human mosaic that is the image of God. We are the constant; Caesar is the variable one.
The Church prays for the wisdom of rulers, and sometimes advises them on policy, but no civil law is a part of the gospel. There is no NT book like the OT's Leviticus that prescribes a Christian code to be imposed on all the states of the world. Instead, there is a way for Jesus's disciples to inhabit the world's God-loved diversity-- the Sermon on the Mount, and the Judaic pattern of family life. That way is not to seek the power to impose our policy preferences-- "You have only one teacher - the Christ. He who is greatest among you must be your servant" (St Matthew 23:11)-- but to perform works of mercy that are in themselves God's judgment on the hardheartedness at the root of social sin. A fortiori, it is deep confusion to instrumentalise the whole Church into a sort of lobbying organisation for our favourite proposals of legislation. We are, rather, to encourage each other in the difficult enough calling of following the way of Jesus.
So far as America is concerned, our Supreme Court did all that justice requires when it ruled that SSM was the law of the land. Any public policy is open to criticism, but a critic of the ruling in the Obergefell case would have to advocate an America without the Fourteenth Amendment which guarantees to every citizen here "the equal protection of laws." In God's sight, sexual minorities have always been entitled to that protection and now they have it. Appropriately, The Episcopal Church has played no real part in this entirely secular story of litigation wending its way through the courts to reach a just result. Justice having been established by the state as is proper, a church requires a different rationale proper to its own calling to warrant requiring that weddings celebrate androgyny. Offhand, I cannot imagine what that could be.
Bowman Walton
Hi Ron
Most of what you say is agreeable.
But you still do not address the question of difference within the one Catholic Church of Christ.Rome recognises our baptism as "one baptism" but it will not recognise our ordination as ordination in the one church of Christ. We may appeal to Christ as the one who ordains but Rome does not accept that appeal! Nor does it say, even through Franics that it is a matter of conscience.
To the matter at hand, we can also say that the church of Christ has only known one marriage, between a man and a woman.
Now there is an Anglican Church which canonically declares two forms of marriage, between a differently gendered couple and between a same gendered couple. By what authority do they assert this is the mind of Christ when the vast majority of opinion, both ancient and modern, both Scripture and tradition, says this is not so?
At such a point I suggest appeal to conscience or to our generally being one in Christ does not cut it in respect of catholicity.
Father Ron's arguments sound to me like those of Richard Hooker's critics on the left. As expats in Geneva, they had fallen in love with Calvin's austere, aniconic style, which was in such clear visual contrast to the sumptuous style of the papal error. Now returned to England, how could they possibly wear the rags of popery as Elizabeth through her Abp Whitgift demanded? Surely this was a matter not for uniformity but the individual conscience.
Philosophically and historically, the problem is that in different contexts we can understand an individual's *conscience* as referring either to an internal assent from all the evidence available or to reliance on an external authority with a good claim to better knowledge. These positions are called *internalism* and *reliabilism*.
A C16 German peasant afraid of everlaasting torment in hell had reason to be an internalist. Who but God can you trust about something like that? Not for nothing does the Heidelberg Catechism begin with the question, Was ist dein einiger trost im Leben und im Sterben? (What is your only consolation in life and in death?) Hence Luther's insistence that for that extreme case, no human authority but only a Word from God-- baptism, communion, absolution, preaching, scripture-- is adequate to the individual soul.
But for the most part, Christians do not live their lives dangling over the lake of fire, which makes such dramatic internalism unnecessary. Moreover the justified Christian is no longer in curvatus se (curved in on the self) in a way that makes prudent reliance on better informed opinion difficult. Indeed, the capacity to recognise and follow an ever more rich and complex web of reliable relations is a mark of sanctification. Without it, we could never come together as the Body of Christ. It is just this unity that the world without God cannot emulate.
So Richard Hooker's point to the returned exiles was that there was adequate reason to trust that the rulers of church and state had wisely ordered the Church of England for the edification of Christ's Body in the realm. But to see this they had to trust reason itself. And my own point is that a free spirit trapped into an excess of internalist suspicion by the narcissism of the age needs, not elaborate accommodation for conscience, but the security of the Gospel and a heart opened to the Logos who makes richer Communion possible.
Bowman Walton
Off topic, mostly, but fun--
https://dogmatics.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/defending-leithart/
Bowman Walton
And why not this?--
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=22-06-034-f
Bowman Walton
"And my own point is that a free spirit trapped into an excess of internalist suspicion by the narcissism of the age needs, not elaborate accommodation for conscience, but the security of the Gospel and a heart opened to the Logos who makes richer Communion possible."
- Bowman -
You speak here, Bowman, of 'internalist suspicion by the narcissism of the age'. Contrarily, have you thought that those who have no private conscience equipped with reason, may be more prone to give in to what you are please to call the 'narcissism of the age'?
Those who are both Christian and have an individual conscience open to reason (a gift of God) are perhaps more open to the Holy Spirit's guidance than those who are locked into a doctrinal stasis from the past that denies any movement of the Holy Spirit in today's world.
To relegate to some lower category the operation of the individual conscience is to surely deny the very purpose for which God has given us the gift of freewill. We use our gift of reason to come to our individual response to God's call. We cannot surrender our individual conscience to dogmatic formulae that our informed conscience cannot find acceptable. Openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit has, of course, to be tested - usually by the outcome of our strivings for justice and mercy - as exemplified by Jesus in the gospels.
Good theological education ought inform our conscience - to meet any situation of inequality or injustice that denies 'the fullness of life' that Jesus came to offer to ALL. The enemies of Jesus in his own time were not happy with this Gospel opening to emancipation of the enslaved and the underclasses whom he came to liberate, and they put him to death - because of his love of sinners (like temselves).
The tragedy with the Scribes and Pharisees was that they saw themselves as the gatekeepers of the Law, while Jesus came to free us all from the due penalty of our sins, by his power of redemption.
"you still do not address the question of difference within the one Catholic Church of Christ.Rome recognises our baptism as "one baptism" but it will not recognise our ordination as ordination in the one church of Christ. We may appeal to Christ as the one who ordains but Rome does not accept that appeal! Nor does it say, even through Franics that it is a matter of conscience." - Dr. Peter Carrell -
Dear Peter, when you speak of Pope Francis, you are speaking of a new model of the papacy. His eirenic actions of late have given some hint of his own personal understanding of the scandal of the Roman embargo on Holy Orders outside of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Leo's edict was enunciated in a time of crisis for the R. C. Church, and I believe that this is recognised by +++Francis. His recent co-option of Bishop David Moxon and the Orthodox Archbishop in the Papal Blessing given to a Roman congregation speaks louder than words on this issue.
The action of Pope Paul VI giving his episcopal ring 9with the Petrine seal) to a former Archbishop of Canterbury was another indication papal acceptance of collegiality in ministry.
These are but small signs of papal acceptance of Anglican solidarity with the Bishop of Rome, but they hint at a level of ministerial coherence that denies the separatist dogmatic renunciation of our Anglican Orders. To my mind, this is where 'de jure' is overcome by a 'de facto' reality.
I think too many Anglicans operate under the 'loss of nerve' principle; wherein they obdurately close their eyes to reality, thus giving credence to a separation that grieves them. The Body of Christ may be broken. But this is not a new phenomenon. However, in Christ, we are all one Bread, one Body, for we all partake of the One Bread - whether we perceive it or not; whether we like it, or not.
The real point is, Peter. Do YOU believe this reality?
“We need a theological centre that is more broadly useful to the Communion. Well-facilitated interpersonal diplomacy is first aid, not surgery and recovery.”
Bowman Walton
This to me is the ‘money quote’ from the discussion on Peter’s post.
Presumably that ‘theological centre’ would either become the seat of authority when it comes to matters of faith and practice for the Anglican Communion, or it would act as a theological advisory board to the Primates?
Either way, the question of [theological] authority, which has surfaced in subsequent responses, appears to be at the heart of matter.
As a ‘newbie’ to the Anglican world, we appear to do diplomacy very well and authoritative statements not so much. While Father Ron has quoted Jesus as the primary source of authority, I’m conscious that Jesus seemed less concerned than the Primates with ‘diplomacy’ when it came to speaking those things he heard from the Father.
While the Primates are arguably timid in their pronouncements, many of Jesus statements were considered to be offensive, even heretical by his hearers.
Furthermore, there are matters of church life and discipline upon which Jesus is silent, but the Apostles, are considerably more vocal. Can we reasonably read Jesus tacit approval of homosexual marriage into his silence on this matter? Or can we on the basis of context believe that Jesus would have expected his Jewish audience to be familiar with God’s thoughts on homosexual practice?
Are we not reasonably expected to take the whole of Scripture, along with the historical teaching of the Church Fathers into account when reflecting upon TEC’s innovation?
Or does the Anglican Church expect each generation to re-interpret Scripture for itself?
When does deferring the obvious for the sake of improbable unity eventually become disobedience?
Hi Ron
It matters not one whit how much nerve I (or you) have, nor whether we believe there is only One Bread etc, nor whether various popes make pleasant and, yes, encouraging gestures, the simple ecumenical fact of the matter is that neither of us is welcome to preside at a Roman Mass. And, to keep perspective, neither yet is a Methodist Presbyter welcome to preside at an Anglican eucharist.
We have a lot of ecumenical ground to cover before that great day when all sectarian divides will be overcome in heaven!
" the simple ecumenical fact of the matter is that neither of us is welcome to preside at a Roman Mass. And, to keep perspective, neither yet is a Methodist Presbyter welcome to preside at an Anglican eucharist." - Dr.Peter Carrell -
Peter, as a parish priest in the Auckland diocese, there were local Roman Catholics who received the Eucharist at my hands in an Anglican Celebration of the Eucharist. When asked whether this might not be contrary to their Church's teaching about the validity of Anglican Orders, one of the responses was that they recognised the Jesus was present in the Celebration. They obviously did not agree with their own community's official dogmatic stance on Anglican Orders.
Only a very small point, but when applied to the general attitude of Roman Catholics towards their Church's embargo on contraception, this indicates a holy dis-satisfaction with the Vatican's dogmatic ruling.
Konwing - as I do - that Christ is 'present' in the Eucharist I am called upon by conscience to Celebrate, I am unable to live by the Roman insistence on the invalidity of my Orders, and I see no good reason why I should prevent any believer from receiving Christ from my hands at the Eucharist.
Became some Christian do not accept my ministrations as a priest of God, that does not allow me to deny believing Christians the consolation of the Sacraments.
This situation is comparable with that of people who do not accept Infant Baptism. That does not prevent an infant receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit when that Baptism is administered according to the rites of the Church. Now Baptism is a Sacrament of the Universal Church where both Anglicans and Roman Catholics accept each other's formularies and validity.
The fact that the Roman Catholic Church has issued a document that enjoins on Roman Catholics an understanding that Anglican Orders are invalid does concern me - but it does not in any way inhibit my exercise of pristly ministry. I look forward to the day when we are able to agree on what constitutes the revealed will of the Lord of The Church but, in the meantime, I need to obey God';s calling on me.
While most attention in this matter of validity is directed towards the difference between Anglicans and Roman Catholics; we must not forget that we Anglicans tend to regard certain other Christian bodies as not quite up to par. Accusations of un-orthodoxy seem to be part and parcel of free-range anathema - not only against, but often within, denominational bodies. We are ALL sinners, and the sooner we accept that reality the better for everyone.
"My heart is inditing of a Good Matter" with Pope Francis. For God, all things are possible. For the Church Universal, they may take more time. However, we do have eternity to negotiate. Perhaps God is waiting for us ALL to understand his call to Unity in Diversity.
Maranatha - even so, Come, Lord Jesus!
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