Vale Bishop Chuck Murphy

Posted on January 24, 2018 
Filed under Anglican Communion, People, Sydney Diocese

“Charles H. Murphy III, retired bishop and founder of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA), died Jan. 9 … He was 70.

Through his organization, created in response to liberal drift in the mainline Episcopal Church, Murphy gained acclaim from conservative Christians for taking a public stand against liberal theology that rejected the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, and other orthodox doctrines. AMiA provided a new institutional home to marginalized conservative Christians, churches, dioceses, and bishops in the US and Canada. …

By September 1997, Murphy and other conservative Episcopal clergy believed that their denomination had thoroughly embraced false doctrine and was resistant to reform. These clergy drafted and signed the First Promise statement. It declared the church had “departed from ‘the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this church has received them,’ and we declare their authority to be fundamentally impaired, and that they are not upholding the truth of the gospel.”

– Full story at Christianity Today. (link via SydneyAnglicans.net.)

Related:

Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America:

“The reformation of Anglicanism in North America owes a great deal to his courageous and visionary leadership, and I am thankful for the ways in which God used him to spread the message of Jesus Christ.”

Here’s how the Editorial of ACL News, March 2000 reported the developments at that time. It gives a sense of the turmoil being created by the actions of the Episcopal Church, and varying thoughts on how best to respond –

On Saturday 29th January, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda and the Most Rev. Moses Tay, Archbishop of the Province of South East Asia, together with other bishops, consecrated two American Episcopal clergymen, John Rodgers and Chuck Murphy, as bishops. 

In their press release they said they have “agreed to step forward at this moment of crisis, in an initiative aimed at reversing a 30 year decline of 30 per cent in the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA)”.

This action has attracted widespread condemnation. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he is “appalled by this irregular action”. The new Primate of Ausralia, Archbishop Carnley, has described it as “wicked”. Archbishop Goodhew has expressed “profound disappointment that these consecrations have taken place at this time and in this manner”.

Archbishop Goodhew said he was disappointed by the actions of some who attended last year’s meeting of conservative Primates and Archbishops at Kampala. He understood that there was agreement to wait until after the meeting of Primates in Lisbon this month before any action such as this took place. (Read the full text of the Kampala Statement.)

In their defense, Kolini and Tay have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury stating that the Kampala meeting did acknowledge that among those gathered some were ready to respond to “specific and urgent situations which may arise” in the months before the Lisbon meeting.

They say that their act of consecrating the two bishops was in response to the continued rejection of the Lambeth resolutions by a number of dioceses in ECUSA and the actions of the Primus of Scotland. These have breached the boundaries of Christian and Anglican Faith which, they say, must be “grounded not on mere polity but fundamentally in the historic faith entrusted to us”. They say it is the violation of the Faith that makes unity impossible.

Since the consecrations in January, other statements of support have begun to flow in. The Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bishop Robert Duncan has said that John Rodgers (one of the bishops consecrated in Singapore) is now a missionary bishop. “He will be welcomed by me as the leader and friend he is… These are anomalous situations for anomalous times”.

Events are unfolding on a daily basis. The Lisbon meeting will be  watched very closely to see whether the Primates close ranks to protect the interests of the establishment in America and elsewhere, or whether they will act to defend the biblical faith and support actions that will enable Anglicans to be protected from heretical and apostate leaders.

On Monday 28th February, the Standing Committee of Sydney Diocese passed these three motions –

1 “The Standing Committee of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, supporting Archbishop Goodhew’s initiatives, respectfully requests the Primates in Lisbon to take note of the recent consecrations of the Right Reverend John Rodgers and the Right Reverend Chuck Murphy as an expression of the extreme frustration of orthodox and faithful Anglicans in ECUSA and the world-wide Communion and, recognising the disparity between heretical and immoral actions on the one hand and irregular actions on the other, calls upon the Primates to affirm in the face of current denials:

i the uniqueness of Jesus as the only name for obtaining salvation,
ii our redemption through his full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world, whereby he reconciled his Father to us,
iii the resurrection of Jesus in which he took again his body, with flesh, bones and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature,
iv the sufficiency and authority of Scripture; and to reject the current advocacy of:

i heterosexual immorality and
ii homosexual practice; and

to take all necessary and possible steps to ensure that all members of the Communion have available to them episcopal ministry in accordance with the principles set out in the form of consecrating of a Bishop found in the Book of Common Prayer (1662); and
to take the actions outlined above, rather than pursuing the development of further legislative authority and juridicially binding structures at various levels of the Communion.”

2 “Standing Committee requests that the Chief Executive Officer of Anglican Media communicate the Standing Committee’s resolution to media outlets around the diocese, the national Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion as quickly as possible.”

3 “Standing Committee requests that the Diocesan Secretary send the Standing Committee’s resolution and the documents that the mover requested be circulated for tonight’s meeting to

i) each Primate attending the conference in Lisbon
ii) each Member of the Anglican Consultative Council
iii) each Diocesan bishop and Standing Committee in Australia
iv) each Parish Council of the Diocese of Sydney for immediate consideration.”

(The documents mentioned in the third motion are –
• David Holloway’s speech in Kampala last year
• Archbishop Harry Goodhew’s article in The Church Times
• the letter from Archbishops Tay and Kolini to the Archbishop of Canterbury
• and the article “Crisis what Crisis?” in The Church of England Newspaper.)

The Anglican Church League welcomes any attempts by the Primates to call the godless and deviant elements of the Communion to repentance. That is the least they can do.

Further, the ACL stands with harassed Christians who are oppressed by liberal bishops and synods who deny them the right to practice the Faith free from persecution.

The ACL supports efforts of orthodox and biblically committed Anglicans to purge our denomination of elements which not only embrace deviant forms of sexuality but who also repudiate the uniqueness of Christ and his once for all sacrifice for sin on the cross.

The time may be coming when Anglicans need to stand for truth against the powers that be – as they did in the 16th Century Reformation.

Members of the ACL, which has always stood for Reformation principles, should not be slow in supporting those who place their duty to Christ above that of men.

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