Thursday 12 June 2008

Forget moralism

Pyromaniacs blog:

Society is not going to be redeemed, or even influenced for good, by moralistic special pleading. The vast majority of the moralism we get from the religious right is lacking any clear reference to Christ or the gospel. It is devoid of any biblical authority, because it has been distilled into a purely political message. It is frankly indistinguishable from the teaching of the Pharisees.


They say this here.

7 comments:

Truth Unites... and Divides said...

Gordon,

Do you think there will be an internal, yet respectful split among the GS/GAFCON leaders, bishops, and primates when summer 2008 is over? The split would be over which GS provinces formally and biblically separate from the See of Canterbury.

Or do you think all the GS provinces will still maintain full, formal and official communion with the See of Canterbury despite many bishops not attending Lambeth?

In other words, will non-attendance at Lambeth be the full extent by which GS/GAFCON primates and provinces express their displeasure with the heresy and apostasy in the Anglican Communion and the ABC's long-time provision of safe conduct and passage for the liberal revisionist heretics and apostates?

IMHO, DELAYING = ENABLING SIN and ...

ENABLING SIN = SIN

Gordon Cheng said...

Hey tu..ad

The splits are already there.

The only question is to what extent they get announced. Anglicanism's got no universally accepted mechanism for recognizing communion, despite what the centralists would like to argue.

Interesting question! Not sure how you got to it from the original post, but worth a think anyway.

Truth Unites... and Divides said...

Sorry for being off-topic. I got to your blog via TeamPyro. I've been meaning to post on your blog awhile now, but figured this time was as good as any.

I have said on other blogs that the split will not come at Lambeth, but at GAFCON. But now I don't even think that anymore based on what I've read from ++Venables and ++Anis. Even ++Jensen's latest letter to the ABC looks to me like GS/GAFCON will stay formally tethered in communion with the See of Canterbury.

BTW, I have no dog in this fight. I just hate what I think God hates. One, blatant heresy and apostasy. Two, the tolerating and enabling of heresy and apostasy by those charged with protecting the flock.

The ABC has been derelict and grossly negligent. The heresy and apostasy will be institutionalized, embedded, hardened, spread, and flourishing throughout the Anglican Communion due to this inexcusable and unacceptable toleration of God-mocking heresy and apostasy. How can the GS/GAFCON bishops and primates enable the enabler of this mess, the ABC, by remaining in full communion with the chair of the See of Canterbury? Revelations 2 comes to mind.

IMHO, ++Akinola, ++Orombi, and perhaps ++Kolini and ++Jensen should formally sever ties from the See of Canterbury... which has become a false idol anyways for many Anglicans.

Other GS primates won't follow Akinola, Orombi, et al. That's the split that I think should happen. I.e., between GS primates; some will leave; some won't.

Pax.

Gordon Cheng said...

Fair enough, tu...ad, and welcome.

Like I said, we have no formal way of recognizing communion within Anglicanism. Lambeth is probably as close as it gets, and various people want to argue that there are other ways as well, but really it's up for grabs. We got no pope.

The flipside of this is that there is no formal way of breaking communion. You can announce that you're out of communion, and that is probably as close as it gets. But that has been going on for quite a while now.

I hope that the splits will continue, because it will make it clearer that the issues at stake matter, and it will make it harder to view Anglicanism as a cause worth fighting for. It's really only the gospel that's worth getting worked up about. Anglicanism? pfft.

Truth Unites... and Divides said...

"It's really only the gospel that's worth getting worked up about. Anglicanism? pfft."

Ha, ha, ha, ho, ho, ho! Good strong belly laugh. You are a fellow brother-in-Christ after my own heart.

Have you seen COUNTERFEIT COMMUNION AND THE TRUTH THAT SETS FREE?

Gordon Cheng said...

No, I hadn't seen that; looks like good stuff.

One good link deserves another, and I see that the link you provided quotes our own Phillip Jensen. Phillip and some others gave a briefing on Lambeth '08 recently, and the papers are here.

Truth Unites... and Divides said...

Hi Gordon, what do you think of the following argument:

The "catholic" (and, historically, Anglican... and of course Roman and Eastern) understanding of schism and unity is this:

The ideal is to be one in the faith. One faith; one Church; one baptism. But this unity is in the faith. It is, ultimately, an expression of unity in Christ. If that oneness in Christ isn't there, then the unity is as meaningless as membership in the Audubon Society... it is an "institutional" unity of a sort, but because it's not based on oneness in Christ it is, therefore, not the "spiritual unity" which is the sort the Church is charged to seek out.

Thus the Biblical and Traditional reason for schism -- such as when Simon Magus was ejected by the apostles; when the patristic fathers broke communion with the Arians, etc -- is the necessary response when someone has broken off that unity. If someone says "I reject Christ" and you say "I'll remain in spiritual communion with you" you have, thereby, said that that "communion" is not based on unity in Christ. The proper response, by contrast, is to say "you have, by abandoning Christ, abandoned the ground of our union and communion."

That apostate has, in effect, performed the schism. The orthodox response, separating himself from the apostate, is not creating schism but recognizing that the apostate has already created that schism. To stay "in communion" with the apostate is not avoiding schism -- it is participating in it. Confronted with apostasy, the choice of the orthodox is not "schism or no schism" -- the choice is whether to participate in that schism, or to avoid it by separating from - and anathematizing - the apostate.

In this sense, the "Anglican Communion" is schismatic. It is schismatic in so far as it has -- in refusing to separate itself from the apostates -- joined their schism from Christ. Refusing to separate doesn't avoid schism... it participates in it. "Unity in Christ's Church is all important" -- fair enough. But when you include apostates in your "church" you have ipso facto broken away from "Christ's Church" and joined the schism.

Of course, it is ONLY those actions which genuinely separate one's self from Christ -- genuine apostasy and heresy -- which require this remedy. Differences of pious practice, of interpretations within acceptable norms, etc... in all these, believers have freedom. Those difference which are not theological & ecclesiastical do not merit such separation. Right there, you probably have removed the reasons for 50% of the more-or-less undifferentiated "vanilla Protestant" denominations to be separate. (And, truth be told, for many of the Continuing Church jurisdictions' separations as well.)

Further, it's when a jurisdiction has embraced heresy and apostasy -- as PEcUSA has -- not when this or that individual in it has that communion between jurisdictions must be broken. Every group has its wackos... the issue is not what the wackos say (wackos who, hopefully, will be properly disciplined within their own jurisdiction) but what the jurisdiction as a whole officially teaches and practices. Thus the reason to break from PEcUSA is not because of Pike or Spong or Vicky Gene -- but because of the institutional teaching and practice as a whole. (The flip side of which is that the presence of more traditional bishops -- such as Ackerman or Duncan -- isn't adequate reason to stay. The institution is still schismatic, heretical and apostate.)

Nevertheless, the fundamental point is this: the Anglican Communion is, as a whole, schismatic because -- in refusing to separate itself from apostates -- it has abandoned its foundational unity in Christ and, thus, joined the schism. It has placed "jurisdictional affiliation" over preserving the faith -- and that is heterodox.

There are different possible remedies -- getting the group, as currently constituted, to eject its apostate members (which seems unlikely); forming a separate jurisdiction requiring and preserving that unity in Christ (and consecrating new bishops & forming new jurisdictions where needed -- e.g. a new CoE with a new bishop of the see of Canturbury); etc. No doubt there are others. But the current "status quo" is not among them -- for, right now, the Anglican Communion has abandoned its unity in Christ (and, thus, abandoned any spiritually meaningful "communion" and "unity") because it has ceased to make unity in the faith a requisite for membership.

Just remember: separation and anathematization are not, per se, misguided or improper. When confronted with apostasy, they are the only way to avoid joining the schism. The only way to preserve the unity in Christ which is the whole point in the first place.

He who has ears let him hear.