Rev. Ephraim Radner responds to Bishop Johnson’s Letter Concerning the AAC Memo

By The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner

Senior Fellow, The Anglican Communion Institute

The only thing surprising about Bishop Johnsons pastoral letter is the level of vituperative hostility;  the content itself represents a consistent ignorance about the Anglican Communion and a willful denial about ECUSAs standing, externally and internally, with respect to its canonical legitimacy in the eyes of both that Communion and many of our own members. As I have noted elsewhere, the outrage over this leaked memo of the AAC is either a sign of disingenuousness or of numbed consciousness.   

The basic outline of this strategy has been public for some months, largely because it represents the Proposal of the Primates of the Global South for

disciplining ECUSA (and New Westminster) that was presented at the October Lambeth meeting (this proposal is available at anglicancommunioninstitute.org).  In brief, the Proposal calls for the larger Communion, along a certain timetable, to withdraw its recognition of those bishops who consented to Robinsons election, participated in his consecration, or supported the local option resolutions regarding same-sex blessings;  it also calls on the Communion to maintain its recognition of those bishops and others who opposed these measures as the legitimate representatives of the Episcopal Church’s.   These recognized leaders would then be affirmed as those capable to acting by rights according to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church’s.

The AAC -- through its leaders and individual members, both present at Lambeth and subsequently -- have affirmed the thrust of this Proposal.

We didn’t need a publicity splash to know this. In case Bishop Johnson and others hadn’t noticed, even though the Proposal was not officially accepted by the Primates meeting as a whole, it has been put into place by individual Primates in their relationships with ECUSA already, albeit in an uncoordinated fashion.  The process for deciding who is the real Episcopal Church’s is well underway;  and thus far, the weight is stacking up in favor of the AACs contention.   

This is a process that the larger Communion has set in motion quite independent of the AAC, and its implications and outcome are tied to the center, not the periphery, of ECUSAs leadership legitimacy.

If any of this comes as a surprise to bishops of ECUSA, it can only be because they have once again closed their eyes to what the majority of the Anglican Communion is actually saying, doing, and committed to being. Then again, such willful blindness no longer strikes people in the larger Communion as odd, since it seems to have characterized all the decisions and actions people like Bp. Johnson claim were done publicly and above board: the public trashing of the Scriptures, of the historic faith and order of the Church’s, of our Constitution, of the previous commitments of the General Convention, of Communion teaching and agreements, of the bonds of our common life -- that this constitutes established means of peaceableness over against the deceit of those upholding the teaching and witness of our historical faith is damning statement of Bp. Johnson's own stunted moral vision.

In short, nothing new.  The AAC is not an outlaw organization;  membership in and support of its work is not a breaking of communion with ECUSA;  no one should be frightened by Johnson’s bluster.

Rev. Don Johnson - Concerning The AAC Memo & Bishop Johnson

From The Rev. Don Armstrong

Rector, Grace & St. Stephens

Colorado Springs, CO

Much is being made of a leaked American Anglican Council strategy memo and a Pastoral Letter from the Bishop of Western Tennessee. I would say that this is all much to do about not much.  Bishop Johnson is simply over reacting.

Remember, it is the revisionists who have misbehaved, those of associated with the AAC and our own ACI are simply and obediently maintaining the historical faith and order of the Anglican Communion--something I consider a creedal necessity. The revisionists will try to spin this memo to turn the tables--and I for one don’t want to empower that parlor trick by paying it too much attention.

There was nothing particularly startling in the AAC memo--the revisionists broke communion by disobedience to the expressed position of the Church’s’s instruments of unity, which then caused ECUSA to be in violation to its own constitution and canons. This has resulted in more than half of the Anglican Communion severing ties with our province. The AAC memo simply states that it is serious business to reorder the church’s--and that we are prepared to take the necessary steps to which faithfulness calls us.

The statements contents have been vocalized in many ways and are not illogical if compared to the Global Souths Disciplinary statements that can be found on the ACI web site.

I think the important thing to remember is that this is not a one size fits all response that the AAC has articulated. There are dioceses that will respond as a whole, there are parishes that will leave for a new structure which we are currently developing, there are parishes that will just hide out (which for them might be the only option given the givens) and there are congregations who will stay in ECUSA, but with a strong and networked presence of commitment to the truth (certainly this is where Grace Church’s, Colo Spgs will be).

On January 19 and 20 I am participating as a regional (Mississippi to Rocky Mountains) representative to the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes official organizational meeting in Plano at the personal invitation of Bishop Duncan. We will be developing ways to address, articulate and support all four of the above possible responses to the oppressive posture of the revisionist Episcopal Church’s and its leadership. I can report more

fully and knowledgeably when I return.

I do believe it will be our combined witness and resistance from our various circumstances that will in the end reestablish faith and order to a broken and dysfunctional Anglican presence in the United States. Certainly that is my hope and prayer.