AAC: FIVE SENIOR BISHOPS RESPOND TO HOUSE OF BISHOPS’ CENSURE

From Cynthia Brust, Director of Communications, American Anglican Council

We are not surprised by the House of Bishops censuring the five of us for providing support to those congregations in revisionist dioceses who cannot in good conscience accept the radical actions taken by General Convention and who now find themselves alienated from their diocesan leadership.

The House of Bishops continues its long retreat from its sworn responsibilities concerning the Christian faith—from the time of Bishop James Pike to Bishop John Spong’s “12 Theses,” to its present failure to support faithful Episcopalians in unfaithful dioceses.

The action of the 2003 General Convention, in repudiating 4,000 years of biblical teaching regarding sexuality, and the action of the House of Bishops in repudiating their consecration vows regarding Holy Scripture, were acts of defiance—defiance against the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference, the express position of the 38 Anglican primates, and the explicit wish of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The House of Bishops is willing to censure and threaten five bishops crossing diocesan lines to support faithful Episcopalians. At the same time, they are unwilling to censure or even dissociate themselves from denials of the faith among themselves. This is a clear testimony to the bishops’ attempt to establish our Episcopal unity on canons rather than on Christian faith.

The most generous interpretation of this failure to fulfill Episcopal responsibility regarding the faith, as this church has received it, is to assume a theological incompetence on the part of the House of Bishops—who cannot tell the difference between heretical teaching and the Nicene Creed. Departing from Scripture to pander to the present age resulted in the loss of 400,000 Episcopalians in the decade dedicated to Evangelism!

We stand in solidarity with the 21 global Anglican provinces who have either “impaired or broken communion” with the Episcopal Church and who continue to grow as they proclaim the Gospel to a broken world.

The Right Rev. FitzSimons AllisonThe Right Rev. Maurice BenitezThe Right Rev. William CoxThe Right Rev. Alex DicksonThe Right Rev. William Wantland