‘A not too subtle attempt to mislead’

“The Presiding Bishop and her Executive Council are currently meeting in Fort Worth…

her appearance in Fort Worth was preceded by some unusual shenanigans which seem to have been designed only to mislead, demoralize or confuse the members of one of the larger parishes in Bishop Iker’s Fort Worth Diocese.”

– Lawyer A S Haley (the Anglican Curmudgeon) keeps his eye on TEC’s activity in Fort Worth.

Griffith Thomas’ Principles of Theology – Introduction

Church Society is continuing to post online sections from Griffith Thomas’ classic work, Principles of Theology. They’ve just added his Introduction. At Church Society.

Don Carson on the Church — at YEMA

Don Carson spoke at the 2011 Yorkshire Evangelical Ministry Assembly two weeks ago. His topic? The Church.

The Yorkshire Gospel Partnership has graciously made the audio files available on their website. (h/t Unashamed Workman.)

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.

2011 DG Conference for Pastors

Audio and video from the 2011 Desiring God Conference for Pastors is now available on the Desiring God website.

This year’s theme: The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor.

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.

Adopted for Life — free audiobook

This month’s free audiobook from ChristianAudio is Adopted for Life, by Russell Moore at the Southern Baptist Seminary.

Free during February 2011.

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

Mary Kassian on Girls Gone Wise

We’ve mentioned Mary Kassian’s book Girls Gone Wise before (1, 2). Earlier this month she was interviewed on a Canadian Christian TV programme about the cultural pressures facing young women today. Watch it here.

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.)

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