A discussion Starter from Peter Toon March 8, 2005
I have put this question to several people with close links to African and Asian Archbishops. In essence they all agree with the following concise statement given to me by one of these kind persons:
The logic is simple. The decisions about homosexuality are open, admitted, and incontrovertible. They didn't want to raise other things that would have to be proven (while being denied) and dilute the process of dealing with the unorthodox position on sexuality. It became clear some time ago that the Communion was going to split. To attach everything that could justify a separation would only delay the inevitable.
Let us take this step by step and part by part.
First of all, in the matter of homosexuality (the blessing and ordaining of persons in “committed” homosexual, same sex/gender relations) the matter is very clear. There are those who advocate and do certain things, knowing that they are innovations; and there are those who oppose them on the ground of Scriptural morality, God’s law, and biological facts.
If the focus is kept on this issue, and this alone, then it is difficult for anyone to sit on the fence; one either approves or rejects the new doctrines and practices. Therefore, “the logic is simple” and easily grasped by anyone. To accept the innovations, encourage and support them is to cease to be a biblically-based Christian of an orthodox and traditional kind.
So far so good! And, let us be clear, to date this policy of focusing on a single issue has worked well for seemingly the whole world is aware of it, and understands the difference between the position of North American Churches and that of African and Asian Churches.
However, I fail to see why the Primates cannot run alongside their major campaign for biblical sexual morality, a minor campaign (as we may call it) that seeks to answer those who ask such questions as: If the North American Churches say they are sorry, do a U-turn on this matter and restore to their Churches traditional doctrine and practice in sexual relations, does this mean that these Churches are no longer apostate? Does the putting of the sexuality business right (in terms of synodical statements and canon law) mean that the crisis is over and these Churches are back into full communion with the Churches of Africa and Asia?
I for one would like to know how the majority of the Primates would answer these questions.
My reasons are various but one prominent one is this: I see a logic running through the innovations in worship, doctrine, discipline, polity and morality from the 1970s through to 2000. This logic is related to (a) a new attitude to Scripture, to the way it is read and interpreted (where, in essence its supposed cultural conditioning is taken into account and seen as corrupting the divine message) and (b) also to a widespread adoption of theories of human rights and of therapeutical (and feel good) interpretations of received doctrines and practices, from salvation though piety to public worship.
In this context, the reasoning from Scripture which has allowed the widespread acceptance of divorce and the remarriage of divorcees, together with the employment as pastors of divorced and remarried persons, is in essence the very same reasoning which allows the Scriptures to be read as affirming same-sex committed relationships (which are said to have nothing in common with the condemnation of fornication and sodomy in the Bible). Likewise, the reasoning from Scripture which sees God calling and ordaining women as pastors (priests and bishops) is virtually the same as that used for the justification of same-sex blessings and ordinations. In all these cases the obvious, straightforward meaning of the text is not accepted for it is claimed that the real meaning can only be found by pealing away, as it were, the cultural skins and conditioning and thereby seeking the true kernel, the real truth.
By the Biblical interpretation in place from the apostolic age to the mid twentieth century, it was/is impossible to sanction widespread remarriage of divorcees, the ordination of women as priests/presbyters and the blessing of same-sex couples.
The Primates often state Biblical authority is what the present crisis is really all about. I for one would like them -- now that the clarity of the dividing line in sexuality is as clear as clear can be -- to step into the larger arena and to tell us what are the other signs of apostasy that they see in the North American Churches, signs which will remain if the sexuality doctrine is reversed. The fact that they expect a split in the Anglican Family of Churches, with presumably the North American Churches leaving, suggests that they do think that, apart from the apostasy in sexuality there is (as I indicated above) a previous history of apostasy.
One final statement. I think that the basic causes of the beginning of the apostasy in the PECUSA (now ECUSA) can be reduced to two for discussion purposes: -- the adoption of the divorce culture of the post World War II era, and the massive lie told to God and man in the calling of the new prayer book of the 1970s “The Book of Common Prayer” when it was and remains in style and content a Book of Varied Services. These were two massive innovations and set ECUSA on a route that had to lead to apostasy, at least at the Synodical level. By the one innovation the authority of Scripture and the words of Jesus were set aside, and by the other the moral code, the Ten Commandments, was reduced to situation ethics!
I look for clarification from the Primates of the Global South or from their appointed spokesmen in the West/North.
peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk
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