St Matthew's Church Comanche, Texas

"He has shown you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"
Micah 6:8, NKJV

Answer to the Archbishop of York’s Assertion of TEC Orthodoxy
TEC Legal Transparency Petition 4,000 Signatures and Growing
A Look Back at the ACN Council Meeting

Making Sense of the Soup

Answer to the Archbishop of York’s Assertion of TEC Orthodoxy

By The Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, President and CEO, American Anglican Council

Source: The Church of England Newspaper , Week of August 3 Edition

Date: August 2, 2007

Archbishop of York John Sentamu has been quoted as saying, “…I haven’t found that in ECUSA (sic) or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarreled about is the nature of sexual ethics.”

John Sentamu hasn’t looked or listened hard enough. The battle, at least in North America, is over core doctrine and belief: who Jesus is and what authority Holy Scripture has. Although in a brief article there is not ample space for a full-length dissertation on the extent of the problem, let some of the North American and especially Episcopal Church leaders speak for themselves.

In an interview with TIME magazine, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori remarked, “We who practice the Christian tradition understand him (Jesus) as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.” When CNN questioned Jefferts Schori about an afterlife, she opined, “What happens after you die? I would ask you that question. But what’s important about your life? What is it that has made you unique individual? What is the passion that has kept you getting up every morning and engaging the world? There are hints within that about what it is that continues after you die.”

Bishop John Bruno, Diocesan of Los Angeles, in my presence and speaking to a church gathering said Jesus was a savior, his savior, but not the only one and other religions had their own way to God. His predecessor, Bishop Frederick Borsch had said much the same thing, also in my presence, cautioning that people in other religions had their own way to God and should not be evangelized with the Christian Gospel.

Bishop John Spong, retired Bishop of Newark remarked, “I would choose to loathe rather than to worship a deity who required the sacrifice of his son.” From Canada, Bishop Michael Ingham of New Westminster predicted “The next battle will move beyond sexuality to focus on the exclusivity of Christianity and the need to recognize Jesus as a way, but not the only way.” The problem for much of the Episcopal Church leadership is they do not hold an ancient and Anglican view of Jesus Christ.

On the topic of Holy Scripture, the Bishop of Pennsylvania, the Rt. Rev. Charles Bennison has remarked, “We wrote the Bible and we can rewrite it. We have rewritten the Bible many times.” The Episcopal Diocese of Utah stated, “Judgments about ethics by appeal to the Holy Scriptures alone are foreign to our Anglican traditions, which have always included other sources of authority in their deliberations… There is no single biblical morality…”

Some may wish to say that these voices are isolated instances but not representative of the core leadership of TEC. The remarks here included are from the Presiding Bishop of TEC, a bishop of one of the largest Episcopal dioceses and his predecessor, a retired senior bishop of TEC, a bishop of a major east coast TEC diocese, and a former dean of the officially established TEC seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hardly voices on the margin of TEC, their voices and other leaders who have said similar things have gone unchallenged from the main body of the Episcopal Church. Note also that at General Convention 2006, the House of Deputies refused to consider Resolution D-058 which declared the Episcopal Church’s “unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved,” and which acknowledged evangelism as “the solemn responsibility placed upon us to share Christ with all persons when we hear His words, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6).”

The Episcopal disdain for absolute and historic beliefs about who Jesus is and what he accomplished, together with views on Holy Scripture that contradict the Anglican formularies are carried over into other areas where liturgy and practice are built on these views. Most of the liberal/progressive Episcopal dioceses tolerate on a wide scale fully open communion to all present, regardless of being baptized or not, and regardless of whether they are Christian, Jewish, agnostic, animist, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. There is a pervasive disbelief in sin and the need for atonement, disbelief in the unique and essential person and work of Jesus Christ, and a widespread unease in using the historic Trinitarian formulary or ‘Lord’ because it is seen as narrow, sexist, and exclusive. Formularies such as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer substitute for Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The mantra of faith for TEC is openness, toleration, inclusiveness, and progression into new ideas and new ways of looking at God.

So what about the orthodoxy of the Episcopal Church that Archbishop Sentamu assures us of? One of their own leaders puts it very well. The Very Rev. William Rankin, former Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, remarked about heresy, “Heresy implies orthodoxy, and we have no such thing in the Episcopal Church.”

TEC Legal Transparency Petition 4,000 Signatures and Growing

The American Anglican Council's (AAC) recent online petition received over 4,000 signatures in its first week and is still gaining support. The TEC Legal Transparency Petition calls for The Episcopal Church (TEC) to state how much money it has spent since 2004 on litigation against individuals and parishes and to make public the source of the money for said litigation. Within hours of its posting the petition reached the 1,000 signature mark. If you want to sign the petition and haven't had the chance, you can still go to www.showmethemoney.kintera.org and sign. You will not be solicited or e-mailed if you sign. The petition will be used to shed light on a controversial issue that seems to have eluded the headlines and the nightly news stories.

A Look Back at the ACN Council Meeting

By Robert Lundy, AAC Communications Assistant

The Anglican Communion Network (ACN) continued its commitment to unity within the body of Christ and to building a “Biblical, Missionary, and United” Anglicanism in North America at its recent Annual Council meeting July 30-31 in Bedford, Texas. The two-day conference included delegations representing Network dioceses, convocations and the Anglican Global Mission Partners. The Most Rev. Greg Venables, Archbishop of the Southern Cone, was the Bible teacher for the event and other official guests and observers from around the Anglican world were present.

The ACN, sometimes referred to as “The Network,” made significant steps toward a stronger and more united orthodox movement in the U.S.

The council ratified a Common Cause theological statement. (Common Cause is an alliance of ten orthodox organizations in the Anglican tradition.) The document states that the ratifying partners "believe and confess Jesus Christ to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life." It goes on to say "no one comes to the Father but by Him."

Along with the Common Cause theological statement, the council ratified the federating articles of the Common Cause Partners. Describing the federating articles, Bishop-elect John Guernsey said they are “a step forward for Common Cause that allows the constituent partners to retain their identity and autonomy while forming a more coherent and accountable structure. None of the groups disappear and none of the groups stop their gospel mission… Yet we are forming a more coherent whole.”

An amendment to the ACN’s bylaws was approved which states, “Nothing in the charter or bylaws shall be interpreted as requiring submission to the Constitution of the Episcopal Church by affiliates of this Network who are not themselves members of the Episcopal Church."

Before ending the conference, the delegates also approved a resolution stating their “unconditional commitment to the unanimous urging of the Primates of the Anglican Communion that all existing litigation between The Episcopal Church (TEC) and those who have left TEC or are otherwise engaged in litigation involving claims of TEC, be suspended.” The resolution, passed on July 31, went on to declare the Network’s willingness on behalf of its affiliates and partners “to engage in mediation” with TEC to find a mutually-agreeable way forward.

Making Sense of the Soup

If you are confused by the seemingly endless supply of Anglican acronyms don't worry, you are not alone. Many are frustrated when trying to make sense of the virtual alphabet soup of orthodox Anglican organizations. In an effort to clear up the consternation, the AAC has created a simple diagram of who is in the Common Cause Partners. Click here to view the diagram.