Thursday, August 23, 2007

Wisdom from Fitz

ps - This is Fitz Allison's response to an earlier article by Sarah Hey.  
Even if one never read Sarah's article, I think Fitz' response is still understandable.

Sarah Hey's critique seriously misrepresents Steve Noll's
position when she claims he advocates leaving the Anglican
Communion. The fact is that the Episcopal Church is in the
process of leaving the Anglican Communion and has already
departed in polity and doctrine. The Episcopal Church has been
given a deadline of the 30th of September to repent. A score of
Anglican Primates have already declared themselves out of or in
impaired communion with the Episcopal Church. If the Archbishop
of Canterbury sides with the Episcopal Church against the stated
policy of the Windsor Report and against a majority of the
Primates and the Dar es Salaam agreement where will Sarah stand?

If the Anglican Communion is defined simply by polity and not

by faith then she and Ephraim must follow the example of the
Jansenists in Roman Catholicism, suffer, endure and die.

Duncan and Common Cause will be an integral part of the Anglican
Communion perhaps one not centered in Canterbury and whose
Primate is not the appointment of a prime minister elected by an
aggressively secularized Western post-modern culture.

If Common Cause members were anti-Anglican Communion as she
alleges why do they go to such trouble to be under, ordained by
and part of Anglican Provinces? And why would these Provinces
accept, encourage and oversee these Communion desiring
constituents if the Communion itself was not mutually seen as a
lynch pin in their identity?

Archbishops of Canterbury have had a tradition of being dragged
out of derivative and outmoded polity commitments. Both
Canterbury and York forbade Seabury's going to Scotland.
Canterbury asked White not to include Seabury in the
consecrations, which advice White ignored. It was Canterbury
that changed regarding the necessary polity and function of
bishops. This was also true regarding missionary bishops in the
19th century when Canterbury had to respond to initiatives for
which he had no precedents (since the early church). Another
example of Canterbury's change following unprecedented
developments is George Carey's change of mind regarding AMIA.

The criticism of Common Cause partners for being against the
Communion is way off the mark. When a sizable portion of the
congregation of the Cathedral in Arkansas asked the Spong/Borg
affirming bishop to allow them to become a mission in the
Diocese they were told no, that they were exclusive in an
inclusive diocese so they had to be excluded. Believing in the
Anglican Communion, they asked to belong to an Anglican Diocese
in an Anglican Communion Province, Rwanda.

Ephraim and Sarah's position would be that such a congregation
is expendable and lost to the Anglican Communion (as well as ten
congregations in the Diocese of New Westminster, Canada.)

If they were not pro-Anglican Communion they could with much
less trouble have merely set out on their own. Sarah's
observation that there needs to be a "center other than
doctrine" for Anglicanism to flourish is correct. Any
incarnational faith must be institutionally organized but the
latter cannot flourish without Christian doctrine (faith) or it
will fly apart centrifugally, as it is now doing. Institutions
must be continually judged, amended and pruned that the faith
and doctrine not be lost. And that too is happening.

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