FAITH VS. POLITY - BISHOP FITZ ALLISON RESPONDS TO REV. ZABRISKIE

April 6, 2004

Dear Marek,

I am most grateful for your letter for I have not seen our situation expressed so succinctly and so clearly.

You write "...Episcopalians are welcomed and entitled to differ regarding important theological and ethical matters" but that "The biggest risk I fear at this time is the destruction of our polity, which along with Common Prayer and respect for the episcopate essentially holds us together."

Thus, we are "entitled" to differ regarding important theological and ethical matters" such as denying catholic Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity (Pike), theism and saving action of Christ (Spong), and Christianity itself (Carter Heyward) but we must respect bishops who currently admit they, as a House, are "dysfunctional."

You see the denial of the Christian faith as an entitlement but the biggest risk is the "destruction of our polity." Jack Allin, of blessed memory, confessed in his parting address to General Convention in 1985: "I must repent. I loved the Church more than the Lord of the Church." He said if for me and perhaps for you.

I am thankful that our Anglican forebears did not do the idolatrous thing in elevating polity over "important theological and ethical matters" in the Reformation that gave us our Common Prayer.

I am thankful that Irenaeus did not take our contemporary priorities that you so well describe in his fight with Gnostics.

I am thankful that Athanasius violated the polity of the Church for the sake of the divinity of Christ against the Arians whose teachings would justify Spong's dismissal of the Atonement as "child abuse."

Perhaps you can help reduce the current hypocrisy and perjury in the Episcopal Church by substituting "We believe in our polity, Common Prayer, and the episcopate" for the Nicene Creed

I thank you for your candor and clarity and will share it with some who find it difficult to believe what has become the faith of many Episcopalians.

Faithfully,

Fitz

cc: The Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold Archbishop Rowan Williams Secretary General John Peterson