Time is asking the question: are the Anglicans about to split?
The schism long forecast for the Anglican Communion over the church's liberal stand on homosexuality may be getting closer. A document released by a group of conservative churchmen called the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFcon) made it clear that the the more than 250 bishops who belong to the group intend to transform the 77 million member global Communion, the world's third-largest affiliation of churches, because of their differences over the church's stance on gay priests and other issues.Just days before the group's conference is set to begin in Jerusalem, GAFcon's leader, Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, declared in a 94-page theological statement: "There is no longer any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion... Now we confront a moment of decision... We want unity, but not at the cost of relegating Christ to the position of another wise teacher, who can be obeyed or disobeyed. We earnestly desire the healing of our beloved Communion, but not at the cost of re-writing the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend. We have arrived at a crossroads; it is, for us, the moment of truth."
Not everyone thinks that GAFcon will go as far as schism:
James Naughton, a Canon with the Episcopal diocese of Washington, D.C., and one of his church's more outspoken liberals, says, "I don't think these guys have the juice to pull off a genuine schism. I don't think Archbishop Akinola speaks for Africa. The coalition he once touted as the 'global south' has shrunk to three hardline provinces [Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda] and [some] Western culture warriors."
Whatever ends up happening in the Anglican communion, it seems to me that the fight is over two completely irreconcilable views of Christianity and its teachings, especially in areas of human sexuality, such as the morality or immorality of homosexual acts. The traditional teaching has been against homosexual acts, considering them sinful like other sexual practices outside the realm of traditional marriage; the modern re-imagining of sexual morality insists that there is no inherent (or, we Catholics would say, intrinsic) sinfulness or evil about homosexual behavior, or, for that matter, about other sexual behaviors formerly considered sinful by Christians.
I don't see any possibility of common ground or compromise between these two disparate notions of what it means to be a follower of Christ, so I don't see how schism can be averted in the long run. That doesn't mean it's inevitable, of course, but it's hard to see any different outcome, given what's at stake for each side in this argument.
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JPL: the millions of faithful members of the Anglican Communion are nothing but heretics of the worst sort ...
Well, JPL, perhaps not the worst sort, but heretics nonetheless. I am merely stating the RC position, stripped of the warm and fuzzy oecumenical persiflage of the Vatican II ilk. Cf. Dominus Jesus.
Richard Hooker: Without the buggery of scripture at Rome, there would have been no Reformation. And without the Reformation there would have been no chance for Henry VIII to seize the opportunity to break with Rome in the way that he did for reasons including but by no means limited to his desire for a divorce ...
Many thanks for the history lesson. I hadn't realized that Good King Hal, quondam papist and ultramontane, Defensor Fidei (a moniker still hypocritically used by his spawn Mrs. Windsor), was merely a Lutheran sycophant. I'll say a prayer to Cardinal Newman for your prompt illumination lest you swelter sempiternally for having failed elementary Latin.
Erin,
My apologies. Your points are well taken. "Richard Hooker" is a pseudonym derived from the great Anglican theologian, one that I have adopted to answer Roland de Chanson's extremely hateful anti-Anglo-Catholic bias with what was intended to be *parodic* "anti-Roman-Catholic" bias in kind. That said, the point remains that in light of the Roman Catholics church's recent crisis with regard to "buggery," Roman Catholics are in no position to lecture Anglo-Catholics with regard to our own rather less mild crisis over "buggery." And it is especially unbecoming -- and un-Christian -- of them to do so with the absence of charity that Roland de Chanson has shown. So my posts were merely a jesting instance of the gander being served the sauce that he himself has ladled on the goose. I pray for Roland's soul.
Respectfully yours,
Richard Hooker
Richard Hooker,
I am afraid that you are as deficient in the literary art of parody as you are ignorant of historical truth. Your "parody" is toxic venom, your "jesting" caustic vitriol: my distortion of the Petrine mandate was parody, even a pasquinade. "Mongol hordes", "Pope Buggerbum XXXVIII", "pedophilic papists", "buggery of scripture at Rome" -- do you deceive yourself that this is a clever retort to my humorous "Paddington Bear" sobriquet for Rowan Williams? Do you not understand the difference between a sullying of the priesthood in the Catholic Church by paedophilic homosexuals and the sacramentalization of homosexuality in the Anglican Church?
Might one not unjustly conclude that such contumelies arise in a heart full of rancour and malice?
My judgement on the Anglican sacramentalization of buggery is spot-on. There is no authority in Anglicanism that can gainsay the heinous and grotesque perversion of a "bishop" who abandons his wife and children, turns his house into a invert's brothel and the sanctuary into a bathhouse. Was he excommunicated or even laicised? Rather he was in fact "consecrated" and "civilly unionized." Res atrox foedaque ipsa loquitur.
It has been said here that I am lacking in most of the virtues both cardinal and theological. I admit the truth of that claim. I probably embody most (but not all) of the various vices in immoderate measure as well. I therefore with gratitude and such Christian humility as I can muster accept your offer of prayer for my soul. And I will pray for yours, to Thomas More, to John Fisher, to Mary Stuart.
Roland,
You should have read my reply to Erin Manning -- read as opposed to skimmed -- before weighing in on a post that was not addressed to you. In fact, more reading, less skimming, more thinking, less knowing on your part would be good for us all, and best of all for you.
Once you have read the post, you will note that my parody was a parody of *you.* Perhaps you failed to get my joke because you yourself *are* a joke, as well as the butt of my own. I explained to Erin that the point of my posts was to reply to you *in kind* -- to serve the gander (you) the sauce that he has ladled on the goose (the Anglican Communion). Since the sauce which you can dish but which you clearly cannot take is the splenetic self-salvation of a Pharisee, that is the sauce which I served to you in kind, a sauce heated up parodically so that you might share the sting of what you served on this particular thread and that you frequently dish out on this blog. I realize that "Roland de Chanson" is a schtick than you perform on the blog, but it is just as entertaining and just as edifying to most of us exposed to it as "Richard Hooker" was to you -- ie not very much at all.
Richard Hooker: the sauce which you can dish but which you clearly cannot take is the splenetic self-salvation of a Pharisee ...
I confess I thought it futile to point out your feckless foray into parody. But I took the trouble in an attempt to sharpen your literary wits. I acknowledge defeat.
And now you come with "the sauce of splenetic self-salvation". Your genius is farce, not parody!
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