My Take on the ABC’s Statement

Wise words mate.

Very fine analysis.
Thanks Matt.

Yea, but the Uncle Joes are embarrasing the ladies, setting a bad example for the kids, and disturbing the neighbors, to say nothing of the mess their making that someone has to clean up.  Can’t have that!  The Uncle Joe’s need to straighten up and fly right or loose their place at the table.  All of them.

Uncle Joe needs an intervention, not ignoring or just having to eat in the kitchen. 

Uncle Joe is destroying his own family. 

The Pater Familias (PF) has been colluding and cavorting with Uncle Joe. 

The PF a God-given responsibility for the well being of Family.  He is not and has not been living up to that responsibility. 

Rowan Williams is not a faithful shepherd or guardian of the Gospel.

I loved the end of J.I. Packer’s video when he states that the Gospel should be guarded above all else…he said it twice.

The Gospel and Faith are the Ark of God and it is being spat upon by TEC.  They need admonishing, not tolerating.

More graphic than I would express it…but over all I agree.

John3v3, agreed, but like I said, “If you want to keep people like that at the table without actually doing anything to help them, you gotta make some compromises.”

Let me say it a different way:

Rowan Williams has acted as the ultimate permissive Daddy who even joins the kids in their raves and orgies. 

This creates chaos for the rest of the family (not just at reunions) because there is no sane solid firm adherence to Truth or Law being kept at the top. 

As ABC, he has been and remains willing to compromise the Gospel and Scripture to keep TEC and any other province at the table without correction or discipline for their heterodoxy and embrace of sin.

before the big dog (that’s me) steps in.

Two analogies destined to become one of the crown jewels of StandFirm, if I do yip so not for myself. 

without actually doing anything to help them,

IOW, he doesn’t exactly have the heart of a pastor.  Is it remotely possible that he believes that the Christian portion of the AC family will step in and give some tough love for the naked uncles?

Moot I don’t know if thats what he’s thinking or not but it did cross my mind yesterday. Waiting now to hear from the Christian portion of the family.

Good work Matt, waiting to write was wise and reduced bandspace.

I like your approach Matt.  We all seem to forget that the Anglican Communion is but an association of “churches” (I’m not sure that “communion” is the right descriptive word)and not “a church.”  I’d like to have seen ++Williams behave a bit more like a father and impose the discipline that he does have upon his wayward child (TEC), that being to state directly that they cannot be “in communion” with him until they behave in a manner consistent with the accepted consensus regarding the “mind of the Communion”, but that’s just not his style. At least he did clearly say (“clearly” for ++Williams that is)that TEC’s positions regarding human sexuality issues are inconsistent with the present mind of the Communion. And, one can assume that he’s going to move forward with the “two-tier” track view for the Communion.  Is that necessarily a good approach?  No, but as either +Lawrence or + Love said during their post General Convention interviews, “this side of heaven, there is no perfect church.” 

God’s plan is unfolding as God intends for it to unfold, He is pruning the vines of His vineyard in His own fashion and in His time, and when He is ready for us to see the result of that work, we will see it.  In the meantime, we’d be well advised to put our energy into doing positive things in His vineyard consistent with Christ’s command to us to go out into the world and make disciples among the nations.  Recognizing that we Anglicans are a “messed up family” and are members of an imperfect association of churches, we must nonetheless do our very best to reflect the face of Christ to the world, and especially since some within our “messed up family” seem to have lost the ability to see that face themselves.

Yes, but has he noticed that two brothers and a sister and their families have not indicated they’d show up to the family reunion this year, but they did vacation at the beach together earlier this summer?  Did he notice that there were more family members at that get-together than at the most recent family reunion?  Well, it is not as if they are leaving the family, just participating in these instrument of unity dinners as little as possible these days.  They are too stressful, and they don’t want to support what the uncles do or expose their kids to it.

RE: ” I told him that I’d decided to let the little dogs yap around in the yard first before the big dog (that’s me) steps in.”

Hee hee.

It’s interesting that Matt has to tell people that the big dog is indeed actually Matt. 

; > )

Seriously, an excellent one-paragraph analysis.

As we’ve all pointed out ad nauseum, eventually chunks of the family cease attending the family dinner in disgust with the four Drunk Naked Uncle Joes.

What will be interesting to view over the coming five years is . . . what will the more kindly passive family members do with the family dinners, in the absence of the family members who no longer attend the family dinners?

I take it, Fr. Matt, that you were not too thrilled with your look at what’s left of TEC at Anaheim.

Thanks Matt…sure beats the tar out of that 3 wooden armed stool thingy. You woof Big Dog.  As that famous Episcopalian Jimi Hendrix once wrote in his Epistle entitled “Fire”
Aw, move over, Rover, and let Jimi(Matty) take over…”
Nuff said.
Intercessor

Matt+ you’ll never been seen as Bishop material with clarity like that! I do have a question: Does this mean the whole family is an enabler for Uncle Joe’s behavior or is it a genetic predisposition which Anglicans need to accept? Either way, it begs the question as to if future Anglicans will know what a real functional family is supposed to be like, ya’know?

Well of course we know that Matt is the Big Dog on the blog.  He was after all denied press credentials for being the meanest blogger ever.

carl

The Naked Uncle Joes… Man, what a great name for a punk-rock cover band! Too bad it’s already taken.

Hmmm…I wonder if we should consider locking the 4 Uncle Joe’s in the basement with our crazy aunt (per Ross Perot circa 1980’s)? 

Fr. Matt - on point as usual sir - concise and to the point.  Enjoyed your video reports from GC09 as well sir.

Without proper oversight by the Head of the family, some family tables will be serving the real wine, made from grapes tenderly nutured in the Word, then cut, crushed and melded together as the genuine Gospel message of real LOVE, TRUTH and LIFE.

Other family tables will be serving grape-flavored purple colored Tang laced with deadly poisons (concoctions of the world, flesh, devil/antichrist) labelled falsely as real wine. 

At stake here are eternal spirits, souls and bodies of humans made in the image of God.

TEC and her colleagues in sin might as well be feeding dung and punching out the eyes of those in their ‘care’.

I resemble that remark!

RE: “He was after all denied press credentials for being the meanest blogger ever.”

One can hardly imagine or describe the despair and rage inflicted on a certain other blogger to have that appellation wrongly and innacurately attributed to Matt.

But at least we all have [further] confirmation that ENS isn’t made up of fact-based journalists.

Yeep, Matt+, that pretty well sums it up!

One can hardly imagine or describe the despair and rage inflicted on a certain other blogger to have that appellation wrongly and innacurately attributed to Matt.

Well, I see the evil plot was successful, and they got 2 with 1 blow.  Although, I think they may have inadvertently done Matt a favor- by denying him credentials, they spared him some of the dizziness and nausea that often accompanies exposure to the high spin rate of TEC.  Note that the spin so affected Sarah that she is still misspelling the word “innacurately” (sic) 10 days later.
The problem with ++Williams letter is not the letter itself, it is the date on the letter.  If he had sent this the day after taking the See of Canterbury, we might not have had many of the difficulties of the last 5 years.  But we are beyond polite letters in this country.  Here we are watching depositions and lawsuits, churches closing, the PB pronouncing those who oppose her- from yours truly to Pope Benedict- guilty of heresy.
Some things that need explanation are missing from his letter.  There is no explanation, now or at any time since the Covenant was first proposed, of how churches that are not in communion with one another can possibly enter into a covenant with one another.  At this point, there are no churches in truly full communion with all the churches of the Communion.  Even TEC and CoE do not accept the ministry of all of each others’ bishops (having in mind here VGR and +Henry Scriven).
There is also an absence of support for the CP bishops, that is required in this situation. The ABoC backs off his previous claim of diocesan authority, leaving it to the province to determine whether it will allow bishops to sign on if the province opts out. Most of us doubted that ++Rowan was serious about this when it first came up, since there would be no way to allow TEC bishops to “opt in” without enabling English bishops, and others, to “opt out” in their own provinces- you would need to go the one step further, and eliminate the national structures to make that happen, and none of the national churches seem inclined to go in that direction.
However, at the least, the ABoC could have stated categorically that he would continue to recognize the CP dioceses, whether TEC signed on to the Covenant or not, and he could not even bring himself to do this.  My own opinion remains that the CP dioceses were thrown under the bus at ACC- when their last slim hope of being in an actual covenant relationship was dashed.

Yes, Matt, with this fine analysis you have confirmed that you are the Big Dog.  And Carl is right - you were, after all, the one blogger that sent the ECUSA apparats scurrying under the walls.

“One can hardly imagine or describe the despair and rage inflicted on a certain other blogger to have that appellation wrongly and innacurately attributed to Matt.”

I know, Sarah.  I remember reading Matt’s retort to ENS on this subject.  I thought it rather selfish of him not to alert the good folks at ENS that it was you, Sarah, who was spoken of as “the meanest blogger ever”.  I was disappointed that he stopped short of telling them the whole story.  Selfish, selfish, selfish!

Please, oh please do tell me that the ‘four naked Uncle Joes with lampshades on their heads” were not meant to suggest images of actual various luminaries in the Episcopal Church. I am a very visual person, and I think I have already been scarred for life.

Sounds like at scene from Newhart:

Hi, I’m Larry, this is my Uncle Joe, and this is my other Uncle Joe ....

I have myself wondered if Matt and Neva Rae Fox were not in collusion on the whole thing.

After all, Matt was the only one who applied for press credentials—I’ve always depended on my native wits and cleverness to get news and not the sort of false “badges and ribbons” that press people get.

And then, he traded off of that rejection for weeks. 

Yet, just a simple little private word to Ms. Fox probably fixed the entire thing, and now here he is, still trading on his “rejection.”

Simply brilliant!!! An intellectual tour de force not even surpassed by that thinker of the ages ++ABC. Well done.

Yes, I see your point, Sarah.

First, selfishness; then continuing to trade on his “rejection”.

Sounds very un-“Big Dog"ish to me!

For every Uncle Joe, we have a Auntie Rowanne who is an enabler.

I read the following by James Harriet as I waited for the doctor this morning. I thought it was practically providential. I gift it as a gift of dialogue to the thread.
“‘This is Joe Bentley speaking,’ said the figure on the surgery doorstep. It was an odd manner of address, made stranger by the fact that Joe was holding his clenched fist up by his jaw and staring vacantly passed me. ‘ello, ello,’ Joe continued as though into space, and suddenly everything became clear. That was an imaginary telephone he was holding and he was doing his best to communicate with the vet; and not doing badly considering the innumerable pints of beer that were washing around inside him.”

LOL!  So Dr. Williams appears as the family matriarch resolutely ignoring the dysfunctional dynamics?  Actually, and we are on opposite ‘sides’ of the issues as you may recall, I like that image.  Besides for a guy with a beard, he looks well turned out in a dress. 

I so think the convention management screwed up by not issuing your credentials.  You have a gift for image that would have (actually you did well anyway) skewered us when we were pretentious.  Hey if we cannot take that we need to learn!

FWIW
jimB
(from the left side of the street)

But Matt+ missed the key point - the Four Naked Uncle Joes (FNUJs - sounds like a new Myers-Brigg type) Have Been Baptised so their state of dress and behavior have become irrelevant.

Is Matt having a party at his house any time soon?  I’d like to go. 

The reaction to the actions of the last three months suggest events may have reached a tipping point. The political effort to reform TEC is now over.  There is little energy left among conservatives behind the covenant process, and you can go days without having the phrase “Windsor Process.”  The ABC’s non-response apparently surprised no one. 

People are moving on.

35
Who is bringing the keg?

Matt,
It is called “codependency” and “denial.” It requires “tough love.” The latter involves leaving people to the consequences of their actions rather than rescuing them. In Uncle Joe’s case a “family intervention” may be the first step. All the members of the family get together and decide what they are going to do when Uncle Joe shows up drunk. They all agree that they will call the police and file complaint against Uncle Joe for public drunkiness and disorderly conduct and leave him to the mercy of the judicial system. No one will bail him out. No one will make excuses for him at the hearing. If the judge puts him in rehab, they will ignore his phone calls to bring him a bottle. They will do nothing to support his addictive behavior in any way. Uncle Joe may never speak to them again. On the other hand, Uncle Joe may stop drinking and stay sober.

I don’t mind Uncle Joe bein’ nekkid at the table but did you see what he drug through the gravy when he was reachin’ for the potatoes?

the snarkster™

I think a new name is in order - would that be Mutt Kennedy? (that’s OK - I’m a kiwi, we get our vowels mixed up…)

WAIT A MINUTE!!TIME-OUT!!
SNARKSTER CANNOT BE DROPPING AN OBSERVATION LIKE THAT AS I AM PUTTING A SPOONFUL OF WHIPPED YOGURT IN MY MOUTH FOR LUNCH.
IT’S JUST NOT POLITE…
Intercessor

Darn. Gonna be late for the party. Can’t find my lampshade.

Who has lampshades these days?  Everyone has car headlights in the ceiling.

Ah, once again the esteemed Reverend Kennedy proves Shakespeare correct when he opined that “Brevity is the Soul of Wit.”

Nice summary….

KTF!...mrb

John3v3 1

Uncle Joe needs an intervention, not ignoring or just having to eat in the kitchen. 

So you’re saying that it won’t help if we go out of our way to respect his position and come to a common mind and story on the subject?

If Uncle Joe’s voice is not heard… how inclusive will any outcome be?

37

I’ll bring the keg, you bring the munchies.  Only caveat is that I do champagne taste on a champagne pocketbook, so, no crummy beer allowed—be prepared for no less than something from Fullers.  At least Pageantmaster will approve, unless he has an equivalent(or better) suggestion. 

And Snarkster, I’m not eating that gravy.

You’re all there,
Not All There,
Fullers ESB,
is good for me.

Ok, one keg of ESB and one of 1845. 

The ambiguities of taking a stand in the middle, as the ABC always does, reflect the built-in ambiguities of the Via Media itself. It takes an unusual personality type to be happy as an Anglican. One must be comfortable with the nuanced, the ambiguous and the unsettled. The Book of Common Prayer, as it was originally published, reflects this say-both/say-neither (so long as it is said beautifully) position. Is it both Calvinist and Catholic or neither Calvinist nor Catholic? Again, ambiguity. The C of E exhibited this both/and, neither/nor stand from the beginning as it defended itself against both Puritans and Catholics. It tried and tries to contain the whole spectrum of Christianity in one church! That is why schism from the Anglican Communion is so atypical. Didn’t people know what they were getting into?

This is why, I believe, that consistent conservatives will always be uncomfortable as Anglicans. You prefer positions that are straight forward and clear, like Rome’s. I say this frankly because I want you to know that I understand your exquisite discomfort with the Episcopal Church’s continuous edging toward the left while a minority tries unsuccessfully to hold the line. Classical Anglicanism is historically conditioned always to be in flux, which appeals to a minority of the human race, a minority that is becoming a smaller and smaller minority in the USA, where people who want clear or different answers are jumping ship.

I think the consistent of any sort may well be uncomfortable as Anglicans, if the roars of fury from Susan Russell et al. are an indication.

Remember that Elizabeth’s prayer book was carefully written with keeping as many people in the same pews as possible as its summum bonum.  It was about unity of attendance, not unity of belief.

#50 Ed
There is some truth in what you say and this is something one constantly hears from TEC and some academics; but if you read the 1662 Prayer Book it does have unity of theology in essentials.  It does accept our sinful nature and our need of Christ’s redemption and forgiveness.  If it can be criticised it is for the constant point it makes throughout the language of its services of our sinfulness and unworthiness, even after confession and absolution, and a constant cry for mercy.  Perhaps in its time when you were middle-aged at 24 and death from tuberculosis, cholera, childbirth, infant mortality and violence were all around, this was constantly to mind compared to our apparently safer world.  On the other hand it never forgets the proper relationship which mankind should have towards its creator.  Do take a careful look at the services for Morning and Evening Prayer, the closeness it keeps to scriptural language, not to say its awesome beauty, and rooted as it is in its Catholic predecessor services:
http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/intro/contents.html

In essentials unity.

its time to put uncle joe in rehab, not tolerate his discipicable actions.

A good and godly Head of the Family would have long ago had a talk with the four Uncle Joes and introduced them to Jesus Christ, so they would no longer be naked, but clothed with the Garment of Salvation, and giving them the Water of Life to quench their thirst.

Pageantmaster,
You are right about the beauty and the grandness of the 1662,

I have found the Online Daily Office to be a great thing:

http://daily.commonworship.com/daily.cgi?today_ep=1&book=bcp

Anne:
RE:  “I read the following by James Harriet”—-  has to be Herriot you’re speaking of!

(I think you and Sarah have been getting into NotAllThere’s keg)

#54 Bo - thanks, its a good online link.

Bo (54), I also thank you for this link - now bookmarked. I want to get a copy of the 1662 book.

The whole of the 1662 is also available on line here:

http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/intro/contents.html

Pageantmaster, oscewicee ,

I’m glad I could help!

I purchased a printed bound 1662 version (as revised) for about US$20.00 online.  I was disappointed that the services for St. Charles King and Martyr, and the Restoration had been dropped in the current revision, but otherwise find it to be very useful.  The ‘net version’ is good when I’m at a machine, but I can slip my 1662 in my pocket now!!!.

I am so pleased to see some support here for the 1662.  I was brought up on this, as most Brits of my generation were.  (This is our only authorised BCP in the UK.) I have used it all my life, and still do, to this day.  In 1980 it was unceremoniously dumped by many (most) churches as being old fashioned, difficult to understand, and other patronising and insulting reasons, in favour of the Awful Services Book (ASB) (actually called the Alternative Services Book) which was supposed to be just that, an alternative.  This gave a laughably called ‘modern language’ version which was horribly dated before it got off the press.  It was supposed to bring in young people, but of course it didn’t, it merely divided the existing congregations down the middle.  The ASB in turn has been dumped after 20 years in favour of Common Worship.

I scratch around to find churches which offer BCP (1662) services.  I am fortunate to live in Greater London where it is more readily available.  I don’t find a sung Eucharist every Sunday, but manage a said midweek one, and sung Evensong every week – and would go to Matins (Morning Prayer) too if I could find one.  The pattern here used to be Matins and Evensong every Sunday, with a less frequent Eucharist.

For Brits who don’t know, the UK Prayer Book Society publishes a list of churches which provide 1662 services, and which can be added to.

http://www.pbs.org.uk/churches/index.asp

The purpose of this rather off-topic meandering is just to say that, in my opinion, the loss of the BCP (1662) with the downplaying of the horrid old notion of ‘sin’ in subsequent liturgies must go some way towards the Church being in its current mess!

English Jill
I agree.  One can always listen to Choral Evensong broadcast every week, as it has been since the 1920’s on BBC Radio 3:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp7r

The next broadcast is on Wednesday from St Endellion in Cornwall from their festival.  Up to 4 pm UK time today you can catch the last broadcast from St Mary’s Faversham.  I am listening to it at the moment.

I think this is one of the jewels of the BBC.  The audio quality is excellent.  It would be good to see more broadcasts of services from our church.  It should be possible given the video technology now freely available; all that is needed is a camera and a website and an account with someone like Ustream.

#60 Jill
Ah yes, the Rocky Horror Service book.  Truly awful and its successors weren’t much better.  However things seem to have settled down now with Common Worship which has something for everyone including the 1662 services, and as Bo has found some of them give you the readings and psalms appointed for the day.  Much easier than that peculiar set of tables in the front of the old BCP which require a degree in mathematics to work out.

It would be good to have videos of the services.  The BBC did attempt to move Choral Evensong to a Sunday evening, didn’t they, but I am glad they have reinstated the Wednesday broadcast.  (Public protest, I think was the reason for that.)

Everyone who visits an English cathedral should stay for Choral Evensong.  The quality of the choirs is always superb.  Most cathedrals will have Evensong every day, but not always with the full choir, and the service times change at weekends and at different seasons.  This is ‘Church’ at its best, in my opinion.  (And, of course, it’s always 1662!)

As you were Jill, I was brought up with the 1662.  As a youngster I used to look at the Order of Service and think: Benedictus, Te deum, Venite, Magnificat what’s that all about?  I didn’t even realise they were bible verses.  It has taken me a number of years to come back to it and to realise its concentrated theological content, its beauty and worth.

I don’t think there is much that surpasses the English Church choral tradition.

I don’t think there is much that surpasses the English Church choral tradition.

I think we can all agree on that.  Fortuantly for those not in England there are not only the BBC evensong broadcasts, and the St Thomas 5th Avenue webcasts, but tons of good CD’s and YouTube videos.  I’d post some links but it might be considered off topic.