Methinks he might be feeling a little threatened…
Memorandum
To: Diocesan Clergy, Members of Diocesan Council
From: Bishop Michael Ingham
Date: February 19, 2009Subject: New Activities of the Network
Dear Friends in Christ:
Throughout the centuries, Anglicanism has held together evangelicals, liberals, and anglo-catholics in a single church. Such is our ethos and mysterium.
It is this historic tradition the newly-arrived Network now seeks to undermine. Specifically, they have begun active church-planting in this Diocese with the assistance of the recently retired Bishop of Algoma, Ronald Ferris, who has relinquished his ordained ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada. These efforts to create a parallel Province in this country inevitably involve the recruitment of people from our own congregations, and directly contravene the ancient and modern traditions of the Christian church.
Their goal is to alter Anglican identity. They want to re-shape dioceses along ideological rather than geographic lines. They reject the historic episcopate and seek to put in its place a kind of theological party leadership. There is nothing “orthodox” about these schemes.
I write to make it clear that no assistance or encouragement is to be given to the Network or its leaders in their aim of replacing the generous breadth of our tradition with a narrower one. This applies to all clergy, diocesan and parish officers in their stewardship of buildings and other human and financial resources.
Let us carry on with our mission and ministry as this Church has received it from Christ. As we approach Lent, let us be aware of the temptation to pursue human rather than godly standards, and focus our work on the Gospel of God’s love and justice.
Kindest regards,
Michael
Liberals are a funny breed, aren’t they? They are so vague on theology (what on earth is “ethos and mysterium” anyway?) and yet so clear on territorial boundaries.
Massive wave of the hat to ACL.
Its so fun watching them squirm.
Their goal is to alter Anglican identity.
Yeah… so that it ACTUALLY HAS MEANING. You know… STANDS FOR SOMETHING???
I love the rest of that paragraph:
They want to re-shape dioceses along ideological rather than geographic lines. They reject the historic episcopate and seek to put in its place a kind of theological party leadership. There is nothing “orthodox” about these schemes.
Geography uber alles.
And to hear Ingham prattling on about what it “orthodox.” Priceless. Gay marriage, gay priests, heretics like Matthew Fox wearing collars… all fine and dandy. But re-shaping dioceses along ideological rather than geographic lines? THE HORROR!!!
The ACNiC episcopate is at least as historic as the ACoC episcopate.
Their goal is to alter Anglican identity.
ROTFL. That’s rich, coming from the guy who dumped J I Packer.
All is well, eh?
This strikes me as a disconnect from reality so profound as of the order of the case of a man with a rare perceptual disorder who thought his wife was a book, or something equally surreal.
Irony.
“+“Michael Ingham, you give the word before undreamt depths, nat, deep pits of meaning.
I nominate Michael Ingham for the post of C. S. Lewis’ Anglican Bishop of Hell in The Great Divorce.
They are just mad because they believe that they altered Anglican identity through politics/by-laws. In fact they altered the “godly standards” to suit their human beliefs. The fact that Godly standards are inalterable standards seems to have escaped them. Question: shouldn’t godly be capitalized in a Bishop’s memo?
what on earth is “ethos and mysterium” anyway?
Well, whatever it is, Sarah Hey has posted the Nordic Chamber Choir singing about it…
#8 Depends on which god he’s talking about…
The whole alternative Anglican idea seems to have put Icy Hot in his nether garments.
Embracing diversity is more than having two varieties of whisky in your bar.
#7 Milton,
“This strikes me as a disconnect from reality so profound as of the order of the case of a man with a rare perceptual disorder who thought his wife was a book, or something equally surreal.” ‘The man mistook his wife for a hat’(and other clinical tales) from the book with the same title by Oliver Sacks M.D.
Yes, Bishop, it would be a shame to have leadership based on solid theology.
It’s so funny to see how all of a sudden how traditionalist the get, when their monopoly is threatened.
ACNA is here, we’re queer…get used to it.
DoW
I have news for +Michael Ingham….and others like him in TEC: NOBODY, as far as I know, is actively recruiting anyone from your parishes. If they leave, they do it because they want to leave, and not because we ask them to leave you!
We don’t send teams of recruiters into your parishes; your people are free to do as they please, and they certainly are quite capable of going on the Internet to get all of the information they need in order to make a decision. So, if you’re going to place the blame on ANYONE, all you need to do is look in a mirror.
As we approach Lent, let us be aware of the temptation to pursue human rather than godly standards…
Out of their own mouths they condemn themselves, don’t they?
Seems pretty fascistic to me. How come he’s so scared?
And where, in God’s name, did you get the idea that we’re “rejecting the historic episcopate,” may I be so bold as to ask, Bishop Ingham? According to the Primates, our bishops are members in good standing of the Anglican Communion….just like you! Need proof? Ask Rowan Cantuar!
And to +Ingham, +Schori, and their friends: ACNA is here, we’re near, and we’re not going to go away….so get used to it!
Jeesh..I thought it was a quiet day now this pastoral emission from New West. I could not comprehend working for a clod like that.
ACNA is here, nothing to fear if you hold Jesus dear.
Intercessor
Throughout the centuries, Anglicanism has held together evangelicals, liberals, and anglo-catholics in a single church
represents only the first terminological inexactitude here.
What’s amusing is his insistence that it’s the Network which is trying to re-shape dioceses along ideological lines. That’s what Ingham has been doing!
Let us carry on with our mission and ministry as this Church has received it from Christ. As we approach Lent, let us be aware of the temptation to pursue human rather than godly standards, and focus our work on the Gospel of God’s love and justice.
If TECUSA and ACoC had been carrying out the “mission and ministry as this Church has received it from Christ” then ACNA an the splinter groups would not be there. If they had resisted “the temptation to pursue human rather than godly standards” ACNA would not feel itself necessary.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
mysterium
The teachings of the space alien Mysterios, who arrived at 815 Second Ave., NYC just prior to the 1976 GC. He returned with a new BCP in 1979, and then made a brief stop on the West Coast of Canada. A large number of his followers are now bishops in the US and Canada.
Throughout the centuries, Anglicanism has held together evangelicals, liberals, and anglo-catholics in a single church. Such is our ethos and mysterium.
As Dr. Turner so subtly puts it, this is “terminological inexactitude.” To be more precise, it is nonsense. Liberal Protestantism (in the sense represented by Ingham) did not exist at all until Schleiermacher, and did not exist in Anglicanism until the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Historic Broad Church Anglicanism was not Liberal Protestantism. (F.D. Maurice and William Temple, for example, believed every article of the creed.) Additionally, until the last twenty years or so, liberalism was never considered at the center of Anglican identity, but was tolerated as a kind of protest movement in the church with the understanding that Reformed catholic orthodoxy was the heart of Anglican identity. Anglican authority was defined by the creeds and the theological content of the (1662) BCP, as well as the 39 Articles, all understood fairly literally.
mysterium
This is the reign as world champion of the World Wrestling Federation of the high flying Rey Mysterio Jr. He was also a record setting eight time cruiserweight champion.
#25 William Witt,
1.“Historic Broad Church Anglicanism was not Liberal Protestantism” William, do you consider them to still be separate? Does liberalism clothe itself in Broad Church so that it may pass itself off as Broad Church?
2. “Additionally, until the last twenty years or so, liberalism was never considered at the center of Anglican identity, but was tolerated as a kind of protest movement in the church…”
How did liberalism gain ascendancy so quickly? Did it come up through the seminaries?
Dcn Dale #27,
1. I have seen little evidence that “historic Broad Church Anglicanism” still exists. What used to be called “Broad Church” seems to have morphed into Liberal Protestantism. Perhaps it still exists in the C of E some place.
Wherever I have found acceptance of same sex-unions, I have also found theological compromise on other issues as well. In TEC these days, the dominant theology seems to be either blatant Liberal Protestantism or an “Affirming Catholicism” that is really “Unitarian Dressup,” a love of “smells and bells” with minimal commitment to Catholic Theology.
2. Certainly the seminaries are largely responsible. If one reads the theological literature of the last century, one notices a sudden change in Anglican theology that took place beginning in the 1960s. In the first half of the century, the dominant Anglican theologians were people like William Temple, Michael Ramsey, Oliver Quick, Eric Mascall, Austin Farrer. Biblically, the scholars were people like C. H. Dodd and C. F. D. Moule. The most widely read Anglican authors were probably C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and Evelyn Underhill.
Beginning in the 1960s, we have Bishop John A. T. Robinson’s Honest to God (warmed over “Tillich”), Norman Pittinger’s process theology, Bishop Pike, and the standard Systematic Theology text is John Macquarrie’s Principles of Christian Theology. (Macquarrie’s chief influences were Heidegger and Bultmann.) Donald M. Baillie’s immensely popular Christology, God was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement (1948) is twentieth century Nestorianism, although Baillie seems to have thought he was defending orthodoxy. Joseph Fletcher, author of Situation Ethics, taught Christian ethics at EDS. The dominant biblical scholars in this period were people like Dennis Nineham, John Knox (not the Reformation figure, but a Presbyterian NT scholar), W. H. Lampe (advocate of “Spirit-Christology”), and, of course, J.A.T. Robinson, all of whom were adoptionists of various sorts. The most widely read Episcopal author during the late twentieth century was likely Bishop Spong.
My colleague, Leander Harding, has been writing a book on the ordained ministry, and did some research at Sewanee on the literature that had been written by Episcopalians over the last century. In the early twentieth century, the primary content of the writing was theological. The main biblical text discussed was the Book of Hebrews. The writers discussed issues like the relation between Word and Sacraments, eucharistic sacrifice, etc. After mid-twentieth century, there was a shift to the therapeutic. Episcopal writers on the priesthood now talked about ministry in terms of counseling, management, parish leadership. The previous theological and biblical content simply disappeared.
So there is a sense in which our good friend TBW of Santa Fe’s shock at the questioning of his orthodoxy is not surprising. If TBW were educated in TEC seminaries sometime during the 1960s or early 1970s, he likely would not have been exposed to historic Anglicanism, but rather to a liberal Protestantism that was new to Anglicanism, but had blossomed almost overnight, a kind of theological kudzu. I would imagine that most of the current bishops in TEC would have been indoctrinated in the new theology during their seminary days. It is interesting that many Anglican/Episcopal theologians who started out fairly orthodox shifted ground later on. J.A. T. Robinson was initially fairly orthodox, writing some good books on biblical theology in the 1950s. Peter Carnley wrote some good material on the historical reliability of the gospels early in his career, but in the 1980s wrote a book on the Resurrection that was, to say the least, squishy. Richard Norris wrote some good material on Christology in the early 1980s, as well as a pretty good volume on Systematic Theology for the 1970s Church Teaching series. Toward the end of his life he endorsed “same sex” blessings.
Pray for Bishop Ingham, he has proven himself to be truly lost.
“theological kudzu”.
OK, you win.
#28 William Witt,
Thanks so much for your response. I printed it out for study. One more question if you would allow me. How much of liberal theology in Anglicanism is connected (if at all) with residual ideas from the “Enlightenment”?
Episcopal writers on the priesthood now talked about ministry in terms of counseling, management, parish leadership.
I would say that in the “counseling” aspect Carl Jung seems to have been a favorite. His quasi spiritual understanding of humans would appeal to Priests wanting to offer “Christian Counseling”.
I’m relying on vague memories from 18th century English class here, but weren’t some of the latitudinarians of the 18th century tending toward deism and other heterodoxies such as to be a kind of historical antecedent to modern liberalism, something liberals could point to if they cared enuf abour Anglicanism to study it?
Mrs Falstaff, Bishop Ingham’s unsuspecting flock needs our prayers even more than he does, since he’s leading them towards the cliff edge in a fog of heresy and apostasy.
A couple of thoughts about mysterium. It could be that Ingham is using mysterium as the Anglican equivalent to the Roman Catholic idea of magisterium.
You ask an RC who enforces or teaches their doctrine, and they will respond the magisterium, meaning the hierarchy of the church, culminating in the Pope.
I suppose what Ingham wants is if an Anglican is asked who enforces or teaches the official doctrine, we will reply the mysterium, meaning “It’s a mystery to me”.
That’s just a guess….
Although Liberalism did not fully blossom until the 1960’s it was like a dormant virus resting in the bowels of Anglicanism for several centuries. It remains to be seen whether it will kill its host.
Sieg Heil the Episcopal Church of Canada!!
It’s just pitiful when folks write letters like this…embarrasing really…folks can make up their own minds, thank you. What are you afraid of??? THE TRUTH??? Hmmmm????
Biblically, the scholars were people like C. H. Dodd
Actually he was Congregationalist. You could add in Leon Morris, who famously beat him about propitiation. But otherwise, William, your account is very fine.
I had some NT teaching from Hugh Montefiore when he was still in Cambridge. We liked each other personally, and I made him laugh when after he had made me read Bultmann on Romans I summed up Bultmann’s view of the Resurrection as “deeply, wonderfully and significantly true, it just never occurred”.
I’m relying on vague memories from 18th century English class here, but weren’t some of the latitudinarians of the 18th century tending toward deism and other heterodoxies
Tora1,
The key adjective here is, I think, “some.” I am not by any means an expert on the history of 18th century Latitudinarianism. It is well known that Isaac Newton and John Milton were Arians, and some sources cast doubt on John Locke’s orthodoxy. Bishop Berkeley did not believe in matter. Standard Anglican histories usually mention in passing that some Anglican latitudinarians had questionable trinitarian and atonement theology, but seldom mention names. Whom they do mention are both Bishop Butler and John Wesley, each of whom, in his own way, provided definitive refutations of deism. These are the figures of lasting significance for 18th century Anglicanism. My impression is that, after Butler and the Wesleys, deism simply ran out of steam. At no point did the deists have the kind of influence in the C of E that Liberal Protestantism now has in TEC.
How much of liberal theology in Anglicanism is connected (if at all) with residual ideas from the “Enlightenment”?
All of it. The standard histories all indicate that Schleiermacher is what you get when you combine pietist spirituality with Kant’s epistemology. The skeptical biblical criticism of the nineteenth century was all anticipated by figures like H.S. Reimarus and G. E. Lessing in the 1700’s. David Hume anticipated all of the arguments you’ll find in Bishop Spong’s books, but Hume had the integrity not to call himself a Christian, let alone a bishop.
Actually he was Congregationalist.
Correction noted. But Dodd was a major influence among Anglicans at the time, as Baillie (also not an Anglican, I believe) and Knox (Presbyterian?), and John Hick (Congregationalist?) were to the next generation.
BTW, “mysterium” is simply Latin for mystery.