An Exposition of the Theses — 1

“A number of people have suggested that, like Luther, I should expand on the theses I posted to help people think through the basis of a new reformation of the Anglican Communion. Luther’s Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute was published in 1518 and sought to explain the basis for each of the 95 theses. I have already risked mockery for being so presumptuous as to write the twelve theses I posted in January. Who do I think I am to suggest such a theological basis for the necessary change? But now do I dare go further and explain my own theses as Luther did?

I have decided it is worth doing, if for no other reason than the opportunity to clarify my own thinking and make it just a little more difficult for my words to be misunderstood…”

– Mark Thompson expands his thoughts at Theological Theology.

‘Suppressing the truth’

In his latest video discussion with Anglican TV’s Kevin Kallsen, Bishop Gregory Venables points to Romans 1 as the key to understanding the ills of the Anglican Communion.

Another devastating analysis of the Dublin Primates’ meeting.

ARCIC III — ‘an ecumenical farce’

Former Anglo-Catholic priest, and now Roman Catholic writer (and author of What Will Happen to God?) William Oddie, writes about ARCIC III –

“The trouble with ARCIC always was (as a former Catholic member of it once explained to me) that on the Catholic side of the table you have a body of men (mostly bishops) who represent a more or less coherent view, being members of a Church which has established means of knowing and declaring what it believes.

On the Anglican side of the table you have a body of men (and it was only men, on both sides, in those days) the divisions between whom are just fundamental as, and sometimes a lot more fundamental than, those between any one of them and the Catholic representatives they faced: they all represented only themselves.”

– from The Catholic Herald (h/t Anglican Mainstream.)

To make ARCIC even more problematic for the Roman Catholic side, the Anglican Church of Canada’s Bishop Linda Nicholls has been appointed as an Anglican representative.

(Photo: Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.)

‘Thank God for those primates who were not at Dublin’

“During his closing press conference, Dr. Williams stated that there was “unfinished business” for the Church in regards to the eligibility of non-celibate homosexuals as bishops.

Did he mean by this that the door remains open, in his mind, to adjust the settled teaching of the Anglican Communion (Lambeth 1.10 (1979)) to permit the ordination and consecration of non-celibate gay and lesbians to leadership within the church? Whatever the answer to that question, the Archbishop of Canterbury has made clear that he is not willing to apply any discipline whatsoever to cure what ails the Communion.”

–  Canon Phil Ashey writes in his weekly e-mail update from the American Anglican Council.

Theses for a new reformation in the Anglican Communion

At his blog, Theological Theology, ACL President Mark Thompson contemplates “doing a Luther” for the Anglican Communion. Very helpful. He writes –

“Speaking prior to last week’s meeting of some of the Anglican Primates in Dublin, Bishop Mouneer Anis spoke of the need for a new reformation within the Anglican Communion. The failure of its current leadership to guard and proclaim the gospel, to live consistently according to the teaching of Scripture, and to discipline those who would undermine the faith and the godly lifestyle of Christians around the world, cannot go unchecked forever.

Of course we should recognise that faithful Anglicans around the world have attempted repeatedly to call the denomination back from the brink. In particular, the Global South and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (arising from GAFCON in 2008) have been crystal clear in their stand for biblical truth and for integrity in our personal and corporate lives in line with the teaching of Scripture. Yet to this point their protest, and the message they have promoted so consistently, have been steadfastly ignored. Bureaucrats from the Anglican Communion Office (amongst whom the most notorious is Canon Kenneth Kearon) have ensured a distorted version of the facts reaches the world’s media and even the church press. The false shepherds continue to protect themselves at the expense of the people of God. And so the crisis goes on.   Read more

‘Dublin and the Art of Dishonest Conversation’

Charles Raven at SPREAD looks at the just-concluded Primates’ meeting, and what he sees isn’t good.

“What about a passion for reaching the lost, for faithful teaching and preaching, for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ?”

“We might well ask ourselves what sort of Communion we are in when the chief passion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and those still willing to work with him is for ‘conversation’.  Why this preoccupation with interminable and inward looking dialogue? What about a passion for reaching the lost, for faithful teaching and preaching, for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ?

However sincere or even passionate the Primates may feel themselves to be, this is actually ‘dishonest conversation’ which displaces the gospel and is spiritually dangerous. Fundamentally, this is because ‘conversing’ has come to replace ‘confessing’…”

– Worth reading it all – including Charles’ comments on the state of the Church of England.

A Descent into Irrelevance

“The documents posted at the close of the recent Primates’ Meeting in Dublin tell the story. The takeover of the Instruments of Communion by ECUSA, aided and abetted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is now complete. …

Look at how the remaining primates now view themselves and their function. Their statement of purpose could as well have been written by the Presiding Bishop’s staff at 815 Second Avenue:

We endeavour to accomplish our work through:
* prayer
* fellowship
* study and reflection
* caring for one another as Primates and offering mutual support
* taking counsel with one another and with the Archbishop of Canterbury
* relationship building at regular meetings
* being spiritually aware
* being collegial
* being consultative
* acknowledging diversity and giving space for difference
* being open to the prophetic Spirit
* exercising authority in a way that emerges from consensus?building and mutual discernment leading to persuasive wisdom…”

– A S Haley, “the Anglican Curmudgeon”, responds to the Dublin Primates’ meeting.

‘All not well in Rowanland’

“Of the 38 primates who could and should be in attendance at a legitimate Primates’ Meeting, we understand some 15 are absent. The GAFCON primates AND Presiding Bishop Mouneer Anis and Archbishop John Chew are among those with more important things to do than attend a meeting and be manipulated by procedural rules that Dr. Williams will dominate.

More important, because Rowan Williams structures the meeting to control the primates and disempower them from taking any action that he doesn’t wish, and when their photographs are taken together, the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) uses that photo to announce that all is well in Rowanland.”

– The American Anglican Council’s Bishop David Anderson gives his perspective on the Dublin Primates’ meeting. Full text below —   Read more

The Dublin ‘Meeting’ — commentary

“It has been reported that on two occasions Primates of the Global South advised the Archbishop of Canterbury that they would not attend the current Primates’ Meeting if the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church were present.

Of the fourteen Primates who made this representation, it appears that only one will be attending any part of the meeting.

In this light, the defensive explanations of why Primates are not attending offered by the Secretary General and the Communion Office (e.g. visa problems, diary conflicts, etc.) must raise eyebrows. Why should we think that those who publicly stated two months ago why they were not planning to attend now really wanted to come, but forgot they had another appointment?…”

– The Anglican Communion Institute asks the obvious, but uncomfortable, questions.
(h/t Stand Firm.)

Obama and the ‘constitutional right’ of abortion

“When Barack Obama was running for President, he was described by some observers as one of the most radical candidates in the nation’s history in terms of support for abortion. Once in office, President Obama has done little to dispel that judgment. Even as the President is tracking to the middle on many issues, this is not the case when it comes to abortion…”

– Al Mohler comments on President Obama’s speech marking the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

Lats week in “What about the Twins?”, he wrote:

“The national abortion rate is over twenty percent. Just last week it was reported that the abortion rate in New York City is over forty percent, and among African-Americans in that city, nearly sixty percent. Across the United States, an abortion industrial complex now claims over a million unborn lives each year.”

‘There could be sandwiches to spare in Dublin’

“Pity the poor caterers. The next Primates’ Meeting starts in Dublin in four days’ time — and no one knows how many Primates will actually turn up.

At the end of last year, it was announced that ten Primates from the Global South intended to boycott the meeting, in protest at the inclusion of the US Primate after rows over gay bishops and same-sex blessings. The Church Times understands that this number might have risen to 14 out of the possible 37 Primates eligible to attend…”

– Report from The Church Times.

Anglican Communion website.

The emergence of legal Christian publishing in China

“About the year 2003 it became possible to legally publish some forms of Christian literature in the People’s Republic of China.

Ten years ago, legal Christian publishing was barely on the radar screen, but today the situation is far different. The demographic and publishing statistics are staggering…”

– There are important publishing opportunities in China, according to this article from the current The Banner of Truth Magazine, republished by Desiring God.

Unconsciously recasting the nature of gospel ministry

“Back in Jerusalem, in the early days of the Christian church, the apostles devoted themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word of God (Acts 6:4). Later, the apostle Paul dedicated himself to proclaiming the crucified Christ (1 Cor. 2:1-5) and spoke insistently of his prayers for those with whom he had shared the gospel (Phil. 1:3-11; Eph. 1:15-23; 3:14-18; etc.) This was the pattern of ministry that Paul commended to those to whom he gave responsibility among the churches (1 Tim. 4:11-16). …

In an era when some fear their backs are against the wall and that we must do everything in our power to arrest Christianity’s slide into oblivion, the temptation to rework this classic understanding of Christian ministry is felt keenly…”

– Mark Thompson reflects on the not-so-subtle pressures to change the nature of gospel ministry.

The Authorised Version? – GAFCON and the Anglican Ordinariate

Charles Raven:

“It is sadly ironic that on the first day of the year which marks the 400th anniversary of King James’ Authorised Version of the Bible, which has had such a profound impact on the English speaking world, three Church of England bishops were received into the Pope’s Anglican Ordinariate in Westminster Cathedral.

The fact that the Ordinariate is described as ‘Anglican’ while having no authorization from the Church of England or the wider Anglican Communion is a reminder of just how bold a stroke this is. There are now two fundamentally different forms of Anglicanism in England itself, one of which is part of the Church of Rome…

A GAFCON sponsored mission in England would be an ‘authorised version’ of the Ordinariate because while not part of the Church of England, it would be indisputably Anglican in both faith and order.”

– Read all of Charles Raven’s latest opinion-piece at SPREAD.

(Photo of Pope Benedict during his visit to Westminister Cathedral last year.)

Narnia Invaded

Writing before the release of the most recent film, Steven D. Boyer looks at the Hollywood interpretation of the Narnia books.

“If there is a possibility that Lewis was right—even a bare possibility—then this loss of the original Narnia, this domestication of Aslan, is distressing indeed. It signals nothing less than an invasion by a foreign and hostile power.

The creators of this ‘new improved’ Narnia have taken the single element in Lewis’s tales that twenty-first-century viewers most need to be instructed in, and they have recast it so that it contributes to the error rather than correcting it.”

– In the November–December edition of Touchstone.

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