A Great Debt
I have something of the same feeling on re-reading C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. I owe Lewis a great debt. In my late teens and early twenties I read everything of his I could get my hands on, and read some of his paperbacks and essays several times over. There are sentences, and some whole passages, I know pretty much by heart.
Read moreWhen the primates met later at Dromantine (2005) and received the Windsor Report, they affirmed the general idea of an Anglican Covenant (as did Gen. Convention in June, in Resolution A166).
Read more"To address these requests to the American House of Bishops is not to ignore the polity of The Episcopal Church, but to acknowledge that the bishops have a key role, acknowledged in the Constitution of that church, in authorising liturgies within their dioceses and in giving consent to the election of candidates for Episcopal order."
Read moreIn light of her recent consent to the Communique issued by the Archbishop's Council in Dar es Salaam, she portrayed a person willing to be there and capable of expressing due consideration to all parties in the fragmenting Episcopal Church (TEC). Her actions betray that spirit.
Read morePredictably enough, the serving bishops in the Church of England, led by Archbishop John Sentamu of York, are resisting moves to remove them from the House of Lords. In the main, their motives are selfless. They believe they have intervened effectively in the political process for decades, centuries indeed, representing other faiths, educators and our country's soldiers abroad, to mention just a few of the causes dear to their episcopal hearts.
Read moreEpiscopalian Revisionism is rooted in the Enlightenment. The Declaration of Independence, with its ringing phrases ('We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness') was, after all, penned by and largely signed by Episcopalians (thirty-one out of thirty-nine).
Read moreThis meaty dish has proved unpalatable to the weaker stomachs of the North American liberals and their allies. All they want is a "local option," the permission to go about things their way, conducting SSBs where and when they like, whilst other Anglicans go about their business according to context. It seems reasonable, after all, what's good for San Francisco, Greenwich Village and downtown Toronto might very well be wrong for Lagos, St. Stephen's, Lewisham, or St. John's, Calgary.
Read moreOnly two weeks earlier, the primates of the Anglican world served notice on the bishops of the American church that they must disavow same-sex marriage or be expelled from the communion.
The Canadian Anglican church is to decide the issue in June.
If the church rejects gay marriage, Ingham will no doubt be expected to recant or resign.
Read more2. The 2004 Windsor Report called upon the Episcopal Church to adopt moratoria on the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of any bishop living in a same-sex relationship. Our Convention affirmed these recommendations in November of that year. Now, because the 2006 General Convention failed to do so, the Communique asks the House of Bishops to adopt these moratoria in clear, unequivocal language by Sept. 30, 2007.
Read moreNo Catholic serious about the Catholic commitment to the unity of Christ's Church can take any satisfaction from today's Anglican meltdown. It now looks as if John Henry Newman was right when he concluded that Anglicanism was not a "third branch" on the tree of historic Christian orthodoxy, of which the other branches were Catholicism and the Orthodox churches of the Christian east; rather, Newman decided, Anglicanism was Protestantism in English guise.
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