Do you sign off TEC as innocent and think that Schiori’s “leadership” and dictatorial style has had nothing to do with this schism?
It’s had a great deal to do with it. I judge her theology as charitably as I can (in other words, I’m not as ready as some to condemn her outright as a heretic), but she’s been a disaster as PB.
I for one dislike several things about ACNA. I can be honest about that.
And I need to be clearer about the fact that I don’t just dislike–I downright loathe–the dominant tone of TEC these days. But so many exaggerated and inaccurate things are said about TEC on this forum that I wind up defending it in spite of myself!
I don’t like Duncan particularly either or his unwillingness to eliminate WO as part of the equation. I have heard from many sources that a lot of the new priests being ordained are a bunch of Calvary Chapel humdingers who don’t know the traditional, ancient catholic faith.
Other than WO, you are expressing exactly what I’ve been saying, only you put it more harshly
But I fail to see how anyone can cling to TEC and not see that TEC has aliented herself from the rest of the Communion and has done more to damage and fracture relationships than she has done to be the legitimate, dignified, and morally-strengthening body you make her out to be?
I don’t recall ever saying that the Episcopal Church as a whole is “morally strengthening.” If by “dignified” you mean that generally we are more likely to have historic liturgy and polity than the ACNA, then that’s true. And I would say that outside the four dioceses mentioned above (in one of which you live, which of course influences your perspective on this) we are canonically still the legitimate Anglican presence in the U.S.
We must avoid Donatism–and in the absence of a claim of infallibility I think anti-Donatism has to apply to doctrine to some extent as well. That’s the only sense in which I defend TEC. Not because I think it’s right, but because I think the temptation to start a new church that will do things right is one of the greatest and subtlest temptations to which Christians (especially American Christians) are subject. And I thin that succumbing to that temptation is every bit as bad as anything that TEC as a whole has done. (I won’t say that it’s as bad as, say, the heresies of Spong.)
In short: my point is not that TEC is good and ACNA is bad, but that both institutions are departing from historic Catholicism in different ways, both of them influenced by American religious consumerism.
**He has been inactive and weak, pure and simple. Show me his efforts and show me his triumphs as ABC. **
There’s no point arguing about this, because I suspect we have different criteria. The fact that you want to see “triumphs” in the midst of such a mess, in which many on both sides are bent on schism, is evidence enough of this. The fact that the ABC has put himself in a situation where he can’t “triumph” no matter what is, from my perspective, a tribute to how well he understands his calling as Archbishop.
** Both liberal TECers and Global South Anglicans deplore him. That should tell you something. **
Indeed. But what it tells me is that he’s doing his job more or less right!
**I notice you keep demeaning American religion and insinuating that Anglicans who are not in TEC are somehow hillbilly Ozark snake-handling type yahoos **
Nothing of the kind. I like hillbillies well enough. It’s peppy entrepreneurs I can’t stand
who really don’t know the catholic religion of Anglicanism? I wonder why you express that prejudice?
It’s not a prejudice. My dislike of American religion is founded in thirty years of experience with various aspects of it (maybe more if you consider that my mother’s folks were basically American missionaries in Britain, so I experienced a kind of American religion during the first six years of my life as well). My judgment about ACNA is, again, based in experience, though here I admit that it’s a much smaller body of experience.
**My diocese here is not a bunch of born-again yahoos nor are many other dioceses in ACNA. I will say that REC and Amia as well as plano folks can fit your stereotype. **
I don’t know if the REC does altogether. I suppose that I’m largely thinking about AMiA–most of my encounters with ACNA have been with AMiA.
** Given your views of the conservatives being so loathsome, I’d want 'em gone if I were you, Edwin?**
Gurney,
I wish, wish, wish you would stop caricaturing me. We are really not as far apart as you think. I don’t think conservatives are loathsome at all, and I certainly don’t want them gone. That’s precisely the attitude on the part of liberals that has led to this horrific mess.
It may be that we can’t all coexist. All I’m saying is that folks who can’t put up with TEC any longer ought to become Catholic or Orthodox instead of starting something new. And even that I’m only saying as an ideal. I recognize all kinds of practical reasons why people would find that difficult. I’ve certainly not managed to do it so far. But at the very least don’t be triumphalistic about your schism.
A final note on my use of the word schism: I define schism as Augustine did, setting up “altar against altar.” If you establish a new Eucharistic community in a place where one already exists, you are committing schism. The “evangelism” initiative referred to in the OP is unquestionably schismatic by this definition.
Edwin
