Church loses to Diocese of Central New York
“Dear Good Shepherd,
As you may or may not have heard, the judge has ruled and we have lost our building and all of our assets. …
This little white church on the corner of Livingston and Conklin has been a part of all our lives and the lives of those in our neighborhood for many years. Some of us have spent our whole lives here. This is painful news.”
– Matt Kennedy and the Vestry and Wardens of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York, break the news to their congregation. (h/t Stand Firm.)
(Screenshot from WBNG News, NY – see this earlier report.)
Latest from Central New York
“After taking the church buildings from Church of the Good Shepherd, the Central New York Episcopal Diocese will seek Friday to take money left to the parish in a will.
The Diocese is apparently not content with the seizure of the church building, rectory and tangible property of church of the Good Shepherd: they also want the money left in trust to the parish in the will of a former member who died in 1986…”
– from the American Anglican Council.
Battle within the Diocese
“A congregation on Binghamton’s southside will remain in its church, for now.
The Church of the Good Shepherd broke free when the Diocese of Central New York decided to embrace homosexuality.
Action News reporter Erik Burling was in court as both sides made their case to claim the church…”
– from WBNG News, New York. See also this earlier post.
An Interview with Matt and Anne Kennedy
“In 2009 Bishop Skip Adams and the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York took the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York, expelled the congregation and sold the building to become an Islamic Awareness Center.
Listen to the Kennedys share their experience of God’s providence for their faithful congregation in the midst of these challenges.”
– as interviewed by Russell Powell at GAFCON 2018. Be sure to watch.
And some background to jog your memory.
TEC reaps the whirlwind
“Well it is now official: The Episcopal Church (TEC), a province of Anglican dioceses in the USA (and some neighbouring countries) has declared that it doesn’t care what the vast majority of the Anglican Communion believes to be the teaching of the Bible concerning sexuality. It simply does not care…”
– Bishop Glenn Davies writes at SydneyAnglicans.net.
Related: The TEC Diocese of Central New York, which evicted the Church of the Good Shepherd at 74 Conklin Avenue in Binghamton, appears to have found a new use for (at least some of) the empty building. (Earlier posts.)
Matt Kennedy on ‘Leaving home’ (part 2)
A year ago, Matt Kennedy and his congregation at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York, lost their property to the Diocese of Central New York. Matt continues the story of what happened next — at Stand Firm. (Missed Part 1?)
Photo: Ten News, Syracuse.
Matt Kennedy on ‘Leaving home’ (part 1)
This time last year, Matt Kennedy and his congregation at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York, lost their property to the Diocese of Central New York. Matt tells the story of what happened next — at Stand Firm.
(Screenshot from WBNG News, NY.)
Rector’s Journal: Failed negotiations, email exchanges, an ambush…
Matt Kennedy outlines his church’s interaction with the TEC’s Diocese of Central New York.
“On Friday December 12th, 2008, the Diocese of Central New York will attempt to takeover both the property and the assets belonging the Church of the Good Shepherd. …”
– at Stand Firm.
Donald Robinson on the Origins of the Anglican Church League
by Lionel Windsor
History matters. It makes us question things we take for granted, it helps us to understand who we are, and it gives us a broader perspective on the issues we face today. One example – relevant for evangelical Anglicans, especially in Sydney – is an essay in Donald Robinson Selected Works, volume 4 (recently published by the Australian Church Record and Moore College).
The essay is called “The Origins of the Anglican Church League” (pp. 125–52). It’s a republication of a paper given in 1976 by Donald Robinson (1922–2018), former Moore College Vice-Principal and later Archbishop of Sydney. In the paper, Robinson traces some of the currents and issues that led to the formation of the Anglican Church League in the early twentieth century. The essay is classic Donald Robinson: full of surprises, yet definitely still worth reading today to help us gain perspective on issues for evangelical Anglicans past and present.
One surprise in the essay is that Robinson doesn’t say very much about the Anglican Church League itself! That’s because he’s not too sure about how it started. About two thirds of the way through the paper, after describing in some detail several predecessors to the ACL, he notes:
You will be wondering what has happened to my subject, the Origins of the Anglican Church League. To tell the truth, I am at a loss to give a clear explanation of its origins, or to trace the steps by which it was organised. (144)
So if you’re looking for a detailed history of the ACL over the twentieth century, this essay is probably not for you.[1] But if you’re looking for some key insights into issues that evangelical Anglicans faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and some helpful perspectives on where we’re at today, this essay is certainly worth delving into!
1. Issues leading to the ACL’s Formation
At the turn of the twentieth century, evangelical Anglicans were deeply concerned by two issues: an alarming increase in “ritualism”, and a (related) alarming increase in the authority of bishops. This might seem surprising to us today. When we look around at worldwide Anglicanism, we can take for granted that there is a lot of ritual, and that bishops have quite a lot of power. But it wasn’t always so – and in the nineteenth century, these things weren’t a “given”. Nevertheless, they were on the rise, and evangelicals were trying to stop them. Robinson mentions, for example, the Churchman’s Alliance, which was formed in 1893 as a response to increasing “ritualism” and as a counterpoint to societies that had formed to promote Anglo-Catholicism (133–35). The purpose of the Church Alliance was “To maintain and diffuse abroad the principles Catholic and Protestant of our holy religion” (134).
Robinson devotes much of his paper to a group called the Protestant Church of England Union (PCEU), which owed much to the efforts of Canon Mervyn Archdall (135–39). Significant for the PCEU was promotion of Reformation preaching, and regular prayer meetings were a core of their work (139, 142). The key issues the PCEU faced and sought to address were (140):
- The Lambeth Conference in England which had begun to claim too much authority for bishops in being able to change the liturgy of the church.
- The fact that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York had taken on themselves authority to speak for the whole Anglican communion.
As I mentioned above, we might feel these things are a “given” for today’s Anglican Communion. But at the time, Lambeth and the power of Canterbury weren’t so central for Anglicanism. And evangelicals saw the increasing power of Lambeth and Canterbury as a real problem. The object of the new PCEU (1898) was:
to maintain and extend the efficiency of the Church of England as the original representative of evangelical truth and apostolic order in our country, and as a witness to the principles of the Reformation. (141–42)
So the PCEU promoted constitutional government over against the authority of bishops (144).
2. The ACL’s Formation
What of the ACL itself? According to Robinson, it was founded at some point between 1909–1912, around the election of Archbishop Wright, though the exact circumstances weren’t easy for Robinson to discern (145). Constitutionally, the ACL was affiliated with the English National Church League (NCL), who saw prayer book revision and ritualism as key issues that needed to be addressed (146). It appears that the ACL started as a group that was a little more “centrist” than the PCEU. Robinson writes:
In 1914 we find Canon Gerard D’Arcy Irvine saying that the ACL “stood for central churchmanship, which implied spiritual, strong, and scholarly churchmanship, and fought for the principles of the Reformation upon which the character of future generations depended”… His use of the term “central churchmanship”… reflected the view of the evangelicals that their position was not a partisan position, but was true to the central and authentic character of the Church of England as “catholic, apostolic, protestant, and reformed”. (148)
However, as time went on, conservative evangelicals realised the need for the ACL to be even stronger on Reformation principles against a growing trend of liberalism. Thus, by 1933 the ACL had come to a place where it was opposing not only ritualism, but also liberalism (149).
Even though the ACL was (and still is) constituted as a national body, Robinson notes that the ACL’s main influence has always been within Sydney:
It does not seem to have succeeded to any extent as a national body, though it promoted consultation and offered advice in connection with some elections of country bishops in NSW. Without doubt it consolidated the strength of evangelicals in Sydney, and almost all diocesan leaders have been associated with it at some time or other. (151)
3. What can we learn?
Robinson’s paper is not a comprehensive historical treatise, but it is a fascinating historical reflection. What can we learn from this history?
Firstly, we can gain some worthwhile historical perspective. Ritualism, the authority of bishops, and liberalism are not simply “givens” for Anglicanism! They do not define historic Anglicanism; in fact, not too long ago, they were innovations that needed to be protected against. This perspective can give us renewed courage to continue to defend, promote, and maintain historic, evangelical, reformed Anglicanism.
Secondly, this history reminds us that constitutional, rather than episcopal, government, is definitely worth maintaining and promoting. In our own situation in Sydney, where historically the bishops have by and large been friendly to the evangelical faith, we could feel we can relax and hand more power over to the bishops for the sake of efficiency. But bishops, like all of us, are fallible human beings. Increasing episcopal power is something to continue to watch, and we should be alert to the need to maintain constitutional government.
How do we do that? By all of us (clergy and laity) getting in there, doing the work of governance, finding people for committees to help make decisions for the good of the gospel in the Diocese, and not leaving it all up to the bishops. Robinson’s paper reminds us that the work of the ACL continues to be a significant one for the cause of the gospel and the salvation of men and women, in our own city and diocese, and beyond.
The Rev Dr Lionel Windsor
ACL Council Member and Moore College Lecturer.
Endnotes:
[1] Some further research on these matters has been done by others. For a general history of the ACL, see Ed Loane’s talk at the ACL Centenary dinner in 2009. See also Judd & Cable, Sydney Anglicans, Sydney: AIO, 2000 (Stephen Judd’s PhD was on the ACL).
Ordination in Kenya for church plant in Sheffield
“In Sheffield, South Yorkshire, statistics show that only 3% of the population regularly attend church. Back in 2002 the leadership team at Christ Church Fulwood were invited by senior diocesan staff to investigate the possibility of church planting…
Pete Jackson, who has been one of the associate ministers at Christ Church Central, is the founding minister [of Christ Church Walkley].
Although recommended by the Reform Panel of Reference and trained at Oakhill Theological College, Pete had not been ordained since Christ Church Central was not part of Sheffield Diocese. Concern that his ministry and that of the new church should be appropriately recognised led us to consult the leadership of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE), who subsequently wrote to the GAFCON Primates’ Council…”
– Read the full story at Anglican Mainstream.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…