Abp Orombi to Rowan Williams as the Communion moves ‘further into darkness’

Archbishop of Uganda Henry Orombi has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the gradual take-over of “the Anglican Communion”.

“Many of us are in a state of resignation as we see how the Communion is moving away further and further into darkness…”

His letter is worth reading in full. Text below, or download the PDF file.

9th April 2010

The Most Rev. Rowan Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth Palace
London

Your Grace,

Easter greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In February I read with great interest Bishop Mouneer Anis’ letter of resignation from the Joint Standing Committee. I am grateful for his clarity and honesty. He has verbalized very well what many of us have thought and felt, and inspired me to write, as well.

As you know from our private conversations, I have absented myself for principled reasons from all meetings of the Joint Standing Committee since our Primates meeting in Dar es Salaam in 2007.

The first meeting of the Joint Standing Committee was later that year in New Orleans. At our Primates meeting in February 2007, we made certain requests of the Episcopal Church. In our Dar es Salaam communiqué we did not envision interference in the American House of Bishops while they were considering our requests. For me to participate in a meeting in New Orleans before the 30th September deadline would have violated our hard-won agreement in Dar es Salaam and would have been another case of undermining our instruments of communion. My desire to uphold our Dar es Salaam communiqué was intended to strengthen our instruments of communion so we would be able to mature into an even more effective global communion of the Church of Jesus Christ than in the past.

Subsequent meetings of the Joint Standing Committee have included the Primate of the Episcopal Church (TEC) and other members of TEC, who are the very ones who have pushed the Anglican Communion into this sustained crisis. How can we expect the gross violators of Biblical Truth to sanction their own discipline when they believe they have done nothing wrong and further insist that their revisionist theology is actually the substance of Anglicanism? We have only to note the recent election and confirmation of an active Lesbian as a Suffragan Bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles to realize that TEC has no interest in “gracious restraint,” let alone a moratorium on the things that have brought us to this point of collapse. It is now impossible to regard their earlier words of “regret” as a serious gesture of reconciliation with the rest of the Communion.

Together with Bishop Mouneer, I am equally concerned, as you know, about the shift in the balance of powers among the Instruments of Communion. It was the Primates in 2003 who requested the Lambeth Commission on Communion that ultimately produced the Windsor Report. It was the Primates who received the Windsor Report at our meeting in Dromantine in 2005. It was the Primates, through our Dromantine Communique, who presented the appropriate “hermeneutic” through which to read the Windsor Report. That “hermeneutic,” however, has been obscured by the leadership at St. Andrew’s House who somehow created something we never envisioned called the “Windsor Process.”

The Windsor Report was not a “process.” It was a Report, commissioned by the Primates and received by the Primates. The Primates made specific and clear requests of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. When TEC, particularly, did not clearly answer our questions, we gave them more time in 2007 to clarify their position.

Suddenly, though, after the 2007 Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam, the Primates no longer had a role to play in the very process they had begun. The process was mysteriously transferred to the Anglican Consultative Council and, more particularly, to the Joint Standing Committee. The Joint Standing Committee has now evolved into the “Standing Committee.” Some suggest that it is the Standing Committee “of the Anglican Communion.”

There is, however, no “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion”. The Standing Committee has never been approved in its present form by the Primates Meeting or the Lambeth Conference. Rather, it was adopted by itself, with your approval and the approval of the ACC. The fact that five Primates are included in no way represents our Anglican understanding of the role of Primates as metropolitan bishops of their provinces.

Anglicanism is a church of Bishops and, at its best, is conciliar in its governance. The grave crisis before us as a Communion is both a matter of faith as well as order. Matters of faith and order are the domain of Bishops. In a Communion the size of the Anglican Communion, it is unwieldy to think of gathering all the Bishops of the Communion together more frequently than the current pattern of every ten years. That is why the Lambeth Conference in 1998 resolved that the Primates Meeting should be able to “exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters.” (Resolution III.6).

What has emerged, however, is the Standing Committee being given “enhanced responsibility” and the Primates being given “diminished responsibility,” even in regard to a process begun by them. Indeed, this Standing Committee has granted itself supreme authority over Covenant discipline in the latest draft. Under these circumstances, it has not been possible for me to participate in meetings of the Joint Standing Committee that has taken upon itself authority it has not been given.

Accordingly, I stand with my brother Primate, Bishop Mouneer Anis, in his courageous decision to resign from the Standing Committee. Many of us are in a state of resignation as we see how the Communion is moving away further and further into darkness, especially since the Primates’ meeting in Dar es Salaam.

Your Grace, I have urged you in the past, and I will urge you again. There is an urgent need for a meeting of the Primates to continue sorting out the crisis that is before us, especially given the upcoming consecration of a Lesbian as Bishop in America. The Primates Meeting is the only Instrument that has been given authority to act, and it can act if you will call us together.

The agenda for that meeting should be set by the Primates themselves at the meeting, and not by any other staff in advance of the meeting. I reiterate this point because you will recall our cordial December 2008 meeting with you, Chris Smith, and the other GAFCON Primates in Canterbury where we discussed the agenda for the Primates meeting to take place in Alexandria the following month. None of our submissions were included in the agenda. Likewise, at the beginning of the January 2009 Primates meeting I was asked to present a position paper on the effect of the crisis in the Communion from our perspective, but I was not informed in advance, so I did not come prepared. Yet, other presenters, including TEC and Canada, were given prior information and came very prepared. I have never received a formal written apology about that incident, and it has caused me to wonder if there are two standards at work in how a Primate is treated.

Finally, the meeting should not include the Primates of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada who are proceeding with unbiblical practices that contradict the faith of Anglicanism. We cannot carry on with business as usual until order is brought out of this chaos.

Yours, in Christ,
The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.

xc:    Primates, Moderators, and Members of the Standing Committee of the ACC

(via e-mail).

Archbishop Okoh’s Easter message

The central message of the Christian Gospel is that God through Christ was reconciling the world to Himself and has given us the ministry of reconciliation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By this, the walls of hostilities erected in the past by human prejudices and racial idiosyncrasies had been pulled down. God is now available to whoever approaches Him with an open and clean hearts.

This means that in Christ, there is a new community that finds its anchorage and power in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Consequently, there is both unfettered relationship vertically and horizontally.

The Christian Community which came out of the life of Christ, therefore, is a community of peace irrespective of race, religion, sex, ethnicity or economic status. As we celebrate the victory of Christ, in the resurrection over the power of sin, death and evil of all descriptions, we call on all Nigerians, Christians and non-christians alike to seek, pursue and promote peace in their different local contexts.

It must be emphasized that the frequent disturbances in our country are avoidable distractions. Therefore, in the interest of peace, which is a pre-requisite for good government, economic growth, industrial peace and harmony as well as the general well-being of Nigerians, we call upon leaders at all levels across religious boundaries, to enjoin their followers to be bearers of the message of peace in their utterances and actions. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” John 14:27.

The Most Revd. Nicholas Okoh
Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of All Nigeria
4th April, 2010

– from the Church of Nigeria website.

Mark Ashton with Christ this Easter

“Mark Ashton, Vicar of St Andrew the Great Church in Cambridge (STAG) since 1987, died this last Saturday from cancer at the age of 62.

He had known he was dying for over a year, and used that time to strengthen his witness to the Christian hope of salvation through the death and Resurrection of Jesus – a hope which he offered faithfully throughout his ministry. He has served the Lord and the Lord’s people with faithfulness and distinction, and many others have come to the Lord through him. Alleluia!…”

– David Thomson, Bishop of Huntingdon in the Diocese of Ely, is one of many who have written with thanksgiving for the life and ministry of Mark Ashton. See also Mark’s words of testimony on the linked video.

Gavin McGrath also thanks God for Mark Ashton, and John Allister shares these words.

Please uphold in prayer all of Mark’s family, and the church at Cambridge at this time.

John Piper on Rick Warren

John Piper explains why he has asked Rick Warren to speak at the 2010 Desiring God Conference.

For another perspective see John Macarthur’s comments on The Purpose Driven Life. And pray that Christ will be honoured, and the gospel made clear, in all the discussion of these things.

Easter Message from Abp Robert Duncan

“Go make the tomb secure…”

Pilate invites Jerusalem’s leaders to “secure” the tomb of Jesus [Mt.27.62-66].  They “secure” the tomb with a stone, sealant and soldiers.  As if these could contain our Lord…  Their efforts prove inadequate.  Their materials and means turn out to be no match for the One through whom all things were made. …

– Read the rest of the message here.

Anglicans warn of lonely heart at the centre of glittering city

“If Sydney were a person, she would have a loud laugh but a lonely heart.

The city’s Anglican archbishop, Peter Jensen, says ‘our glittering city contains so much loneliness’, and he is so concerned he has made it the theme of his Easter message…”

– from The Sydney Morning Herald. (Related: ‘Christians urged to reach out at Easter’.)

See the Archbishop’s message – and video files – here.

Daylight Saving ends Easter morning

In 2010, NSW Daylight Saving ends on Easter morning, April 4th.

Reserve Bank Governor uses ‘God given capabilities’

“Glenn Stevens used a charity breakfast in Sydney this morning to say he was using his god-given talents to do the job of managing the economy.…

Mr Stevens also responded to a direct question about his belief in God. ‘I would say that, despite claims to the contrary, there is a God. This is worth checking out and the critical issue people have to deal with is, was Jesus Christ who he claimed to be? If he wasn’t then you can forget about it, and if he wasn’t then I am living in a fool’s world…'”

– report from ABC News. (Photo: Reserve Bank.)

‘Easter Show bans Jesus’

“It’s a curious thing that an event bearing the name “Easter” has disallowed anything to do with the very thing Easter is all about – the death and resurrection of Jesus,”  – CEO of Bible Society NSW, Daniel Willis. Report from Eternity newspaper.

‘Calvinism is back’

“New Calvinism draws legions to the sermons of preachers like John Piper of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis.

Here at CHBC, the pews and even rooms in the basement are filled each Sunday, mostly with young professionals. Since senior pastor Mark Dever brought Calvinist preaching here 16 years ago, the church has grown sevenfold. Today it is bursting at the stained-glass windows…”

– The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the ‘New Calvinism’ – via Capitol Hill Baptist Church. (h/t Justin Taylor. Photo: Mary Knox Merrill / Christian Science Monitor.)

South Carolina defiant

At the 219th Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina yesterday, Bishop Mark Lawrence didn’t mince his words:

“It would be insufferable to see this great Diocese of South Carolina come under the sway of the same false gospel that has decked so much of The Episcopal Church with decorative destruction and dreadful decline.

Like those in the Church at Corinth with whom St. Paul was confronted, many within the leadership of The Episcopal Church have grown willful. They will have their way though it is contrary to the received teaching of God’s Holy Word, the trustworthy traditions of the Christian Faith, and the expressed will of the Anglican Communion—that rich multicultural body of almost 80 million Christians around the world, from many tribes, languages, peoples, and nations.…”

– and that was just the warm-up. Worth reading in full.

See also the text of key resolutions approved – including this one –

RESOLVED, That this 219th Convention acknowledges that for more than three centuries this Diocese has represented the Anglican expression of the faith once for all delivered to the saints; and, be it further

RESOLVED, that we declare to all that we understand ourselves to be a gospel diocese, called to proclaim an evangelical faith, embodied in a catholic order, and empowered and transformed through the Holy Spirit; and be it further

RESOLVED, that we promise under God not to swerve in our belief that above all Jesus came into the world to save the lost, that those who do not know Christ need to be brought into a personal and saving relationship with him, and that those who do know Christ need to be taught by the Holy Scriptures faithfully to follow him all the days of their lives to the Glory of God the Father.

(Photo of Bishop Mark Lawrence: Diocese of South Carolina.)

Installation of Archbishop Okoh

“The service lasted just under four hours and was worth every minute! Had it been on a weekend, there would have been ‘an explosion of numbers’ a bishop sitting next to me said…”

– Canon Chris Sugden writes from Abuja for Anglican Mainstream. He also provides a summary of the new Nigerian Primate’s sermon.

(Photo: Anglican Mainstream. Bishop Peter Tasker was present from Sydney.)

New Nigerian Primate from today

“The new Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), His Eminence, Most Reverend Nicholas Dikeriehi Orogodo Okoh will be installed today in Abuja. He becomes the fourth Primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria.

He takes over from the Most Rev Peter Akinola who vacates his office today…”

– from This Day (Nigeria).

Pray for Moore College Mission 2010

Moore College missions start this weekend – and this is where to get help in praying for them.

Pray that Christ will be exalted.

Religious Education loses out in Ethics trial

“A pilot program introducing ethics classes at 10 different NSW public primary schools as an alternative to the current 30 minute weekly religious education classes begins next month. But less than four weeks before implementation, the scheme is already causing consternation and concern.

Rather than being complementary to primary schools’ religious education (SRE) classes as promised, ethics classes seem to be in direct competition and in their grab for students, are not restricting enrolment to those who have no religious affiliation and spend the weekly half-hour of religious instruction with supervised study and homework. …”

– see the full article from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

Related: An ethical dilemma – from The Spectator.

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