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Church Society Responds to Roman Initiative

2009-11-10T11:22:54+00:00

Church Society have released a response to the RC plan:

According to its own doctrinal standards and history, the Church of England’s true nature is that of a Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical and catholic (in other words, universal) church. Orthodox Anglicanism is therefore defined by reference to these characteristics only, which are set out in the Thirty-nine Articles and the Church of England’s submission to the over-arching authority of Scripture alone. Church Society seeks to defend and promote these defining characteristics, especially the Gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone which is at the heart of the message and mission of the Church of England.

While acknowledging the correct stand taken by Anglo-Catholics against theological liberalism (the features of which do not represent true, Biblical Anglicanism), it should also be noted that the true doctrine of the Church of England does not embrace any of the teachings or practices which characterise the Church of Rome. For instance, the Church of Rome is fundamentally flawed in its claims about its own nature and authority and in its teaching about the means of salvation.

A proper rejection of theological liberalism should therefore not be accompanied by a turning to the Church of Rome and its unbiblical teachings and practices. Rather, both theological liberalism and the unscriptural teachings and practices of the Church of Rome are contrary to the Bible and to the historic doctrines of the Church of England as a Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical and catholic church.

The longing of Church Society is that all Anglicans, whether in England or elsewhere, would see and understand both the destructive nature of theological liberalism and the false nature, teachings and practices of the Church of Rome.

We grieve that the Church of England, along with our nation, has fallen so low in its spiritual and moral condition. We pray that God would pour out His Spirit on both church and nation.

We rejoice that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and we pray that the Church of England will return to full adherence to its doctrinal standards, acknowledging the supreme authority of the Bible as God’s Word and seeking to shape its teaching and practices by what He has revealed.

The statement was agreed by the Council at its meeting on 4 November 2009.

Further information relevant to this statement can be found here.

So basically:

We reject liberalism because it denies the Gospel
We reject Rome because it denies the Gospel

Spot on, I think.

Early Christmas Present Wishlist

2009-11-10T05:10:32+00:00

Here’s mine. If someone gets me some of this I will be eternally grateful.

h/t Nathan W. Bingham

UPDATE: check out the awesome flash intro on the Beer’s site!

Swimming the Tiber?

2009-11-10T01:15:18+00:00

As so many interested parties have noted, Rome has now released the full details of the ‘Personal Ordinariate’: Anglicanorum Coetibus.

In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded favorably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches, could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization.

Could not fail, indeed.

John Richardson makes the astute observation:

The difficult features seem to be these:
I §5 The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the Ordinariate.
In other words, members of the Ordinariate will have to accept every detail of the Catechism, just as do ordinary Roman Catholics. But that being the case, why not just become a Roman Catholic?
III. ... the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See ...
But this could hardly include the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (certainly not with its rubrics!). One is left wondering which books will be approved and if there will be enough left to give an Anglican identity to what remains.

Well exactly. The whole thing is terribly confusing. Not in terms of why the Pope has done this - of course he wants to make every available opportunity for people to swim the Tiber.

But because the whole notion that this is what will make people jump is misguided.

To be Anglican is, amongst many other things, to recognise that Rome is wrong:

XIX. Of the Church.
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.

Now if you thought that Rome was right then why were you hanging around anyway? In good conscience swim. Newman did.

And when you get there, why do you need this particular structure to secure your place?

On the day after the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, it makes me think of what it must have been like if those crowds of people fleeing the East were offered a segmented and distinct place within the West! That’s not what they wanted! They simply wanted the West. So if you, in good conscience, want to go to Rome then go to Rome. I wish you the best. But the idea of a half-way house is nonsense.

Back to it

2009-11-09T10:42:34+00:00

New computer is here. Officially it is “Deep Plum”

Oh, and running Windows 7. And liking it. Let the mac nazis pontificate…

Computer Woes

2009-11-01T04:53:33+00:00

Blogging has been light since last Sunday on account of sudden and extreme computer death.

New laptop is winging it’s way to me from the States, but in the meantime sinfest have been providing the aptly timely cartoons recently….

Happy Reformation Day

2009-10-31T03:44:25+00:00

More info about this wonderful hymn.

Iain Dale: Labour is Responsible for the BNP

2009-10-23T23:24:01+00:00

Spot on:

Someone in an earlier thread reckoned that most BNP voters are ex Conservatives. Oh how I laughed. Funny, I hadn’t realised that Blackburn, Burnley, Rotherham, Dewsbury, Dagenham and Barking had ever been Conservative constituencies. I don’t know if any academic work has been done in this area, but as a guess, I’d say that 80% of BNP voters are ex-Labour voters. That may not always have been the case, but I’d bet a Pound to a penny it is now.

Far left Fascist parties like the BNP invariably do well under left wing governments which fail left of centre voters. Le Pen rose to prominence in France under Mitterand. The National Front in this country gained traction under Labour in the late 1970s, and now the BNP is on the rise here again.

I would venture to submit that this is no coincidence.

Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time will, I fear, ultimately be a good thing for the bigots of the BNP (British National Party). The programme was a joke, but also a sad indictment of the poverty of the British political system and intellectual climate.

You silence these guys by engaging with them and demonstrating the paucity of their arguments. Instead all we got was blinkered and, ironically, prejudiced statements disguised as questions.

Chicken. Egg.

2009-10-23T22:26:46+00:00

I’m reading through “The Chosen Ones: The Politics of Salvation in the Anglican Church”.

McGillion is at his best at the start of the book as he lays out a recent history of the Sydney Anglican Diocese and, in particular, the events and personalities that were involved in the appointment of Peter Jensen as Archbishop.

His theological critique is not so good, it just seems he’s unwilling to understand evangelicals on their own terms.

But as the book closes I find myself gripped once more. McGillion does a good job of observing the trends and tensions in the nation church here in Australia. He also makes a striking observation about the rationale and vindication various parties have for their decisions and especially those made on contentious issues. In particular this quote stood out (p.164):

By acting unilaterally in ordaining women priests in March of [1992] - and doing so without sanction from the General Synod - Archbishop Carnley [of Perth] had set a moral precedent for other dioceses to take a similar step over issues they might deem critical to the faith - lay presidency in Sydney’s case, for instance.

Sharp observation, to which I add the following 2 points:

Article VI Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation…
Which is more damaging to catholicity? To chose to do something on which Scripture is silent or to act unilaterally on something on which, at our most generous we might concede, Scripture is difficult to correctly understand?

UPDATED: Misrepresenting Jensen - Didn’t see that one coming…

2009-10-23T04:05:28+00:00

Attn: See update below.

Most segments of the church are used to being misrepresented in the media - it comes with the territory. The mainstream media are always out for a controversial story.

Just ask Rev. Edward Tomlinson in the UK…

So why hide? Mainly because the local press had shattered my trust. Rather than raising the point I made, concerning the spiritual vaccuum when Christ is removed from funerals, they ran instead with the ‘nasty vicar’ tag. A fact that hurt me deeply, not least because they know how hard I have been working to make the S. Barnabas’ community a better place. Why were the opening of the pre-school, my work with the primary school and plans to build a community centre totally overlooked? Why did they portray me as ‘out of touch’ when they KNOW I have been at the heart of a congregation that has doubled in recent years? These wounds were cut deeper by Meridian TV, who also ignored my point, crassly interviewing locals who had chosen pop music at funerals, simply to make me look ‘out of touch’. A cheap shot we call it on the rugby field! Why do they miss the point when almost all those commenting on websites, both atheist and Christian get it and agree?

Why do they miss the point, and deliberately so? Because it makes for a better story.

Now, of course, you kind of expect this from the mainstream media. What is interesting is when the church press do the same thing as is occurring in the reporting of ArchBishop Jensen’s recent Synod address [pdf]. The ACL takes up the story...

Did Archbishop Peter Jensen wonder out loud if the diocesan financial losses were the Lord’s punishment for going to GAFCON?

From an Anglican Media Melbourne story (22 October 2009):
The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, has admitted questioning whether his diocese’s financial losses were a result of God chastising the Church for unethical behaviour, arrogance in handling its endowment or as punishment for its bishops going to the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem rather than Lambeth. (emphasis added.)

The Australian newspaper also reported in a similar, but not quite as strong, vein.

Thing is, Jensen said no such thing. Again, the ACL have done the work for us…

So what did Archbishop Jensen really say? From his prepared text:
When we ask what God may be teaching us, we must be careful to seek the answer in the right place and in the right way. It would not be right, for example simply to express our own prejudices and guesses and to confuse them with the word of God.

After all, we can think of a number of reason why this has happened and even then all of them may be quite wrong.

Thus, it may be that the Lord is chastising us for our sins – but then some would say that it is the sin of arrogance, others would say it is because your bishops went to GAFCON, others would say it is because of the Diocesan Mission.

You can also listen to the audio of that segment here (3:30min 2.5mb mp3)

Interesting. Melbourne Anglican Media (MAM) report the ArchBishop as wondering himself whether it was because they went to GAFCON whereas the reality is he argued that others might make the claim.

Can we expect a correction from MAM? Doubtful. Sources tell me that this misrepresentation has brought to their attention but they are, how shall we put it, not too concerned about amending it. Which, again, is what we might expect from the mainstream media who may not even understand the issues correctly. But when it is the media arm of another large diocese?

UPDATE:

Well, what would you know? As we publish up this story MAM have removed their original Jensen story from their website.

Kudos MAM, look forward to seeing the retraction and correction.

ANOTHER UPDATE:
MAM put the story back up:

The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, has acknowledged criticisms of his diocese’s financial losses of $160 million as being the result of God chastising the Church for unethical behaviour and arrogance in handling its endowment. “It may be that the Lord is chastising us for our sins – but then some would say that it is the sin of arrogance, others would say it is because your bishops went to GAFCON, others would say it is because of the Diocesan Mission.”

Why the Uproar Over Crumb’s Graphic Novel of Genesis?

2009-10-20T02:10:29+00:00

Perhaps you have seen recent newspaper headlines like “Sketching His Way Through Genesis” about artist R. Crumb’s new project - a graphic comic version of Genesis. Newspapers have been trying to dredge up some outrage from various Christian leaders, with mixed success.

As unlikely as it may seem, Mr. Crumb has become something of a Bible scholar. In a telephone interview from France, he bristled at a description of his book by his British publisher as “scandalous satire.” “I had no intention to scandalize the Bible,” he said. “I was intrigued by the challenge of exposing everything in there by illustrating it. The text is so significant in our culture, to bring everything out was a significant enough purpose for doing it.”

The NY Times also has a slideshow of some of the graphics and Crumb’s explanation for his approach.

Interested readers can also see a preview of Genesis 19 hosted at BoingBoing.net and a google image search for “crumb genesis” will also yield a fair number of results.

My comment? Frankly, why the outrage? The Bible is an earthy text, and Genesis particularly so. It portrays humanity in all our variety - the image of God and yet horribly stained by sin. Like it or not, sex is a major theme in much Biblical narrative. And so it should be - it is one of our main emotional and psychological drivers and, while being a very good thing in the right context, is one of the key areas that people fall into all kinds of harmful behaviour.

The various sexual drives, both healthy and (more often than not) unhealthy, show an honestly by God about the human condition and even make the text accessible. Try discussing the story of Ruth or David and Bathsheba or Jacob and Rachel or even Joseph and Mary without having to broach this difficult but central subject. You simply can’t. The Bible is real about humanity time and time again.

As you look through Crumb’s drawings they don’t appear particularly gratuitous, just real. The addition of much of the text of Genesis by Crumb is also helpful. Perhaps this is a useful way to bring the Bible in all its richness to more people’s attention?

What do you think?