Dean Robert Munday: I really never thought it would come to this…

I have to say, having a very similar experience as Dr. Rev. Munday has had in joining the Episcopal Church 21 years ago, I too didn’t think it would come to this.  My nature is usually pretty optimistic, despite occasional cynicism, and I also thought that the missionary imperatives of a globe starving for food and Jesus would motivate folks to put their pitiful liberal agendas on the back burner so we could go forth in Solid Doctrine and live out our Christian Missions. 

Instead, with zero regard to those whom they are now starving into submission both physically and spiritually, our friends on the left have decided that “Full Inclusion” and the attention it garners are the new Raison d’etre of the Church.

And if I have to hear one more person (idiot) tell me that you can’t trust Scripture because people have used it poorly in the past (to justify slavery for example, as if your status as slave or free has ANYTHING at all to do with salvation!!!) I am going to scream.  Don’t drive your car, boneheads, because somebody in the past got drunk and drove one over a kid.  There’s the logic of that argument for you.

See how optimistic I am??

KTF!!!...mrb

But all indications so far are that the Archbishop of Canterbury will do nothing; the assembled bishops will decide nothing;

On the contrary, all indications are that the Archbishop of Canterbury will continue to do everything he can to advance the destructive agenda of the Episcopalians, and that the assembled bishops will decide to acquiesce.

I remain astounded that people like Dean Munday fail to acknowledge the active and triumphant leadership of Rowan Willians.  Its like they can’t wrap their minds around the idea that the ABC would purposefully and successfully lead the Anglican Communion to destruction and ruin for the sake of the Episcopalians’ agenda.  Believe it, folks.

Similar to Dean Munday, My wife and I first attended an Episcopal Church 31 year ago, I was confirmed 27 years ago, have been employed almost continuously within its structures for 23 years, been ordained for 12 years. I have been on the Standing Committee and the Diocesan Council, I have attended 6 General Conventions being a lay or clergy deputy at four of them.  Both of my now grown children were baptized and confirmed in TEC and now neither want anything to do with TEC.  Besides a two year stint at Truro and Apostles in NoVA I have been in evangelical parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh under three godly bishops: Hathaway, Duncan and Scriven.  As you can see I gave my all for the Church and truly beleived God would reform it in my lifetime. We tried but we lost.  I would have left years ago with the formation of the AMiA had I not been in Pittsburgh.  As for me October 4th and the realignment vote can’t come soon enough!  Common Cause is the only hope (and only viable option) for orthodox Anglicanism in North America.

I thought it would happen, said it would happen.  It did. With a vengance.  For the most part, the same people who have been lowering the bar for themselves with each new scandal, each new year, are still lowering the bar.  I have to assume that the issues are really not important for most or that they are simply too dysfunctional to be able to depart a house of cards that has become nothing but lies.It is as if they have been carrying on a twenty five year affair but too wedded to the comforts of the community property to either admit to the Husband she is committing adultery or to leave.  Instead, she is living in a childish daze of not dealing with giant credit card debts and other manifest avoidances and departures from reality.  Illicit adulterous relationships are NOT examples of healthy coping.  This is the nature of TEC’s infidelity.  It is unfair to the immediate parties but also to the families of all involved.  Don’t live a life of lies ... those in such situations should recognize that marriage is dead and that they have killed it or heal it.  Don’t refuse to grow up, refuse to deal with reality, and insist on being the crazymaker in the Anglican Communion that upsets the entire applecart.  And yes, I’ve seen this example played out among dysfunctional Christians a number of times.  Does it take oracular power to see what is going to happen?  I don’t think so.  What is evident is that very few of us *wanted* to see what was happening and we chose not to.  Whether we are the adulterers in the communion relationships or not, we are all affected and the ripples expanding from the rocks being thrown into the Anglican pond are likely to swamp the boat.  It’s long past possible to maintain the lie by scapegoating some Jonah like Williams we are willing to cast overboard.

Thank you, Dean Munday.  You have given us a hard-nosed view of the reality of where the Anglican Communion is in July 2008.

It’s terribly sad and I’m sure it grieves our Lord.  Perhaps the single item that is most sad is the account of poor, struggling churches in the Global South being forced into terrible choices and being afraid to disappoint those who have given them money.

This agenda of Satan will destroy every church that entertains it.  It’s now taking apart the Presbyterians.

And now, playing the part of Hosea will be the ACI.  The part of Gomer will be played by TEC.

“Dean Robert Munday: I really never thought it would come to this…”

Neither did I, Dean Munday, and I’m sorry, too.  And, all “this” just so a human minority with a lot of cash can deny the Creeds, Scripture, and the Risen Christ(“we come to relationship with God largely through the holiness we see in other human beings”—KJS, Arkansas Democrat Gazette) and overindulge in a ridiculous amount of sexual sin—

Fact is, it looks more and more like the court of Herod Antipas with each passing day…

Eeewww.

#3 - thanks for the honest words. We need more to speak them; many still have not heard. It’s time we say those who are ordained begin to speak in frank and plain terms. When enough voices are raised, the truth will be known.

When I came back to Anglicanism about 4 years ago, I knew that I would not be going back to TEC. Although I was raised in TEC, I knew quite well what it had become and that it was not for me. I ended up in an ACA parish and have been quite happy. It’s the way I remember TEC in the 60’s.
Basically, TEC is a church of ghosts and the church of England is not far behind.

I appreciate my colleague Robert’s Munday’s heartfelt reflection here. I too had hoped for the renewal and revival of the church into which I had been baptized as a university student in 1966. After the Righter Trial, I concluded that this was unlikely, and I began to see a wider danger to the Communion, which I articulated in a speech to Global South bishops in 1997 called “The Handwriting on the Wall”, summarized in this paragraph:

I subtitled this talk “Why the Sexuality Conflict in the Episcopal Church Is God’s Word to the Anglican Communion,” and I conclude with a warning that failure to deal with the crisis in the Episcopal Church will endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion. Representatives from your provinces, meeting at Kuala Lumpur, have already raised the alarm in your statement on “Anglican Reconstruction.” This is a question that cannot be delayed. What will become of Anglican unity if the American church breaks into two bodies out of communion with each other, with one body officially linked to Canterbury and the other officially committed to Kuala Lumpur? If Anglican leaders look the other way in 1998, such a situation is distinctly possible.

I do disagree with one comment from Dr. Munday’s post, where he says:

The missionary imperative in the Anglican Communion remains strong. But that is chiefly the case in those dioceses and provinces that are associated with GAFCON, and these are being driven out of the Communion by an agenda with which they realize, for the sake of their souls, they cannot compromise.

The provinces and churches connected with GAFCON have made it clear that they do not intend to leave the Anglican Communion. Indeed they are claiming to be the true representatives of the Communion. I do not deny that there is at present a broken Communion, and this has been caused for the reasons my friend Robert lays out, but not attending Lambeth is not the same as being driven out. The GAFCON movement has not headed for the lifeboats, and it is unclear that the leadership of the Communion will force them to do so.

The common denominator among all of these comments is the key role that the Archbishop of Canterbury played at a crucial tipping point, now passed, in this struggle.  In many ways, he has been the best possible international ally for TEC’s leadership.  By not being more open with his support for the revisionist agenda early on, he gave false hope of an internal solution and helped sow discord among the orthodox.

Going Home/#12:
I agree that the ABC in this Lambeth conference is probably the tipping point but the degradation started long before he came on the scene.

Like many commenters above, and like Dr. Munday, I too “never thought it would come to this.”  I too hoped that a massive breakup of the AC could be avoided, and that the heresies of the West might be quarrantined and kept confined to the West a lot longer.  But I now recognize that this was a forlorn and naive hope in the shrunken world of global communication and a global economy that we live in today.  As the saying goes, “When America sneezes, everyone else catches a cold.”

But like Dr. Noll (thanks for chiming in, sir!), I will offer a qualifying comment, albeit from a different perspective.  All along, I’ve been keenly aware that there was a very powerful hidden dynamic at work that made it very difficult for Anglicanism to come to terms with the grossly unbiblical teachings and practices of TEC and to deal with them adequately.  And the last five years have only served to confirm my worst fears and most pessimistic suspicions in that regard.

I’m speaking of an aspect of Anglicanism that hasn’t yet begun to receive nearly as much critical attention as it deserves.  I’m talking about the undeniable fact that Anglicanism still reflects far too much of its origins as an established state church.  Anglicanism, or I should say the Anglican Communion (for the two are NOT the same!), still retains FAR too much of its Erastian or Constantinian assumptions.  Even outside England, in the western countries with a British cultural heritage (I’m thinking not only of Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, and New Zealand but also even of the West Indies), the AC still thinks and acts as if we still lived in a Christendom world, i.e., in a civilization dominated or at least profoundly shaped by the Christian faith and life, and where Christianity was favored.  Well, all I’ll say for now is that such a social world has virtually disappeared almost everywhere in the industrialized world.

I firmly believe that this changes everything.  Literally everything.  The shift from a Christendom social world to a post-Christendom world has IMMENSE and very far-reaching implications.  Indeed, the longer I reflect on them, the more massive and far-reaching I pereive those implications to be and extend.  We haven’t yet really begun to deal with it.  GAFCON didn’t address it in any significant way, though it began to talk about the problem of lingering “colonialism” in the AC.

I believe +Bob Duncan the Lion-Hearted was absolutely right in Jordan before GAFCON when he called for a whole new Global Post-Colonial Settlement for Anglicanism.  I enthusiastically endorse that idea.  But I would hasten to add that I don’t think he went far enough. The New Anglicanism that must arise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of our present conflagration will have to be a Post-Christendom style Anglicanism too, and not just a Post-Colonial and Post-English one.

“The Anglo-Saxon Captivity” of Anglicanism is coming to an end.  A whole new era of Anglicanism is beginning.  And unlike Dean Munday, I’m filled with hope.

Yes, the form of Anglicanism that we knew and loved is withering and dying.  But while it’s entirely appropriate to grieve that great loss, I would offer us all comfort in that there always has to be a death before there can be a resurrection.  The truth is this: the Old Anglicanism HAS to die, in order that a whole new KIND of Anglicanism can be resurrected in its place. 

The Old Anglicanism (of “the Reformation or Elizabethan Settlement type) was so severely flawed that it has to be killed off.  It can’t be merely reformed and renewed.  Like our old sinful nature, it has to be replaced by something altogether new and of a different order.

And so I say again here, what I’ve said on a number of threads at SF and T19.  Don’t be downcast too long.  Don’t be discouraged by the gloomy sorts of things that Dr. Munday has said here, right though I think he is in his pessimistic assessment.  I firmly believe that the best days of Anglicanims are yet to come.

Canterbury represents our glorious and precious past.  And we are right to mourn its loss.  Most of us never thought it would come to this, at least in our time.  But it has, or it is rapidly coming to pass.

But Abuja and Kampala and Singapore represent our even more glorious and wonderful future.  Post-Christendom Anglicanism will be FAR superior to the old Constantinian kind.  It will be far more biblical in faith and practice, far more consistent theologically and far more rigorous ethically, and above all, it will be MUCH, much more aggressively evangelistic than the old Erastian kind of state church Anglicanism EVER was.

The best is yet to come!

David Handy+
Filled with unquenchable hope

Thanks to my two professors from Trinity days, Dr. Munday and Dr. Noll for their clear analysis and thanks especially to David Handy for his hopeful prognosis.

if the current rate of decline continues, there should not be a single practicing Anglican left in England in another 50 years. (Although the signs are not yet as apparent, the situation in the American Church is not much better.)

And how sad that the liberals truly don’t care.  They find that laity is troublesome and often disobedient.  Besides, they can distract the church from its true mission of influencing the political process on the big important issues of the day.  One of the true ironies (or perhaps hypocrisies is a better description) of the religious left is the way it beats on its conservative opponents for mixing church and state.  Having discarded the whole idea of right doctrine onto the dust heap of history, the religious left has nothing left but politics to involve itself in.

carl

It’s “cutt’in” time. 

God is unhappy with His church, so He is dividing the wheat from the chaff.  The TEC is, in my opinion, doing God’s will in that by their lies and actions they are forcing issues, causing more and more folks to “choose sides”.  “Choose this day who you will serve”. 

I know there are those in the TEC that are still “waiting for the calvary”.  It is my opinion they aren’t coming.  I think possibly Bishop Stanton is in this camp - it’s been sad for me to watch him fade into the background and become completely irrelevant in this battle.  He was a strong leader for many years.  But it’s a choice.

Rowan Williams isn’t going to lead the Anglican Communion anywhere or at all.  Therefore the liberals will continue their ways until they run it into the ground.  This is sad, but from this will burst forth a new church that will follow Scripture and God’s will. 

Hallelujah!!  Hallelujah!!  Hallelujah!!

I am thankful to my colleague Stephen Noll for the reminder of his prophetic words from 1997.  I strongly encourage folks to read The Handwriting on the Wall.  Also his work in Two Sexes, One Flesh: Why the Church Cannot Bless Same-Sex Marriages is as relevant now as it was when it was written. 

I do want respond to the one point of disagreement Prof. Noll raises:  I recognize that “the provinces and churches connected with GAFCON have made it clear that they do not intend to leave the Anglican Communion.”  That is a position I agree with and heartily support.  But if the Archbishop of Canterbury chooses to let things stand so that to remain in Communion with him is to remain in Communion with those who promulgate the agenda that is consuming TEC, then I cannot imagine that the provinces and churches connected with GAFCON are prepared to live with such an arrangement.  At that point, to say who walked away and who remains the true Communion will be largely a matter of who is doing the talking. 

I wrote what I did to put the blame squarely where I believe it belongs: on the shoulders of the present Archbishop of Canterbury.  It is because of his “things done and left undone” during his term of office that the Communion is in its present crisis.  Whether he has allowed his staff and the staff of the ACO to filter the counsel of those who would have helped him, or to play the Wormtongue to his King Theoden, convincing him that nothing can or need be done, the blame is his. 

I am also thankful for David Handy’s comments.  Dr. Handy is right about the cultural captivity of the Anglican Communion.  And I want to assure him that, while I am sad that the Communion has come to this, I am not pessimistic.  As the Lord said to Elijah who was discouraged and thought he was alone, “I have seven thousand left in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal nor kissed him with their lips” (I Kings 19:18).  There is a remnant out of which will come a bright future for Anglicanism—not mighty or surrounded by the trappings of wealth and empire like the Anglicanism of times past, but faithful, holy, and precious in God’s sight.

Robert S. Munday+
Nashotah House

Dr. Munday (#18),

I’m glad to hear that you aren’t as gloomy and pessimistic about our future as Anglicans as this article could easily be taken to suggest.  I’m not surprised.

And both of your literary allusions are very apt, i.e., from the biblical book of 1 Kings and from Tolkien’s immortal modern myth, The Lord of the Rings.

First, about Elijah not being alone.  Yes, there is indeed a faithful remnant.  How many is known only to God, but there are thousands who haven’t “bowed the knee to BAAL.”  Since Ba’al was a fertility god, often worshipped with the obscene practice of “male cult prostitutes” staffing shrines at the high places in ancient Israel in Elijah’s time and represented by the “standing stones” that are a clear phallic symbol, your allusion to the idolatrous worship of Baal was especially apt and fitting.  TEC has, alas, committed idolatry of a very rank and blatant kind, worhsipping a god promoting sexual indulgence without restraint.

And as for seeing in ++Rowan Williams a pathetic King Theoden figure while under the spell of that traitor Wormtongue, well, let us hope that there is a Gandalf who will deliver him.  Personally, I see more of Saruman in the brilliant but forlorn Archbishop of Canterbury.  He has been coopted, without knowing it, by Sauron/Satan.

Or maybe the right analogy is the tragic figure of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor.  Yes, that seems better to me now.  Noble Denethor, deceived by looking too long into the Palantir and seeing the destruction of the West, and being left paralyzed by what he sees.

Anyway, thanks for this latest illuminating post on your blog To All the World, and for all you do in helping to raise up the leaders needed for orthodox Anglicanism to have a viable future in North America.  You are a hero.

David Handy+

Thanks, Robert. I take your point about whether an outer communion can long endure if the members are out of spiritual communion, and the day may come when one part of the body will be forced to recognize itself as separate from all who affiliate with the other. This is already the case in part, as many GAFCON churches have declared that they are out of communion with those who have breached Lambeth 1.10 and supported homosexual consecrations and SSBs.
On the other hand, the GAFCON statement clearly leaves the door open to churches and provinces who were not present in Jerusalem and is offering to work with already existing Anglican structures like CAPA and Global South.
No doubt the problem will arise whether and how to deal with those who long stand in the gap, claiming to be in communion both with TEC, for instance, and the GAFCON churches, or those who for legal reasons must remain in a formal entity like TEC while dissenting from its heresy. Here discernment will be required, as in discerning which of Jesus’ teachings apply:

Matthew 12:30 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

Mark 9:40 ...for whoever is not against us is for us.

Now I do have a question for any of you historians. Where did the origin of the language “being in commmunion with the See of Canterbury” come from”? What are its origins? It is significant, I think, that the Church of Nigeria removed this wording from its constitution yet also is quite clear that it is a part of the Anglican Communion.

Let’s not forget that TEc is the one proceeding even in their legal battles like it is no longer in communion with the greater Anglican Communion (Body).  Their law suits and attempts to defrock many clergy are based, in part on the statement that these clergy have left the Episcopal Church ... therefore it (TEc) must believe it is it’s own communion, apart from the Anglican Body!

Stephen, I do not have a complete answer to your question.  But in an article entitled, “The See of Canterbury and its Archbishop,”
Peter Toon states,

The Lambeth Conference of 1930 defined the Anglican Communion as “part of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Its center of unity is the See of Canterbury. To be Anglican it is necessary to be in Communion with that See.” [emphasis added]

I believe that report of the 1958 Lambeth Conference dealt more extensively with the meaning of that last sentence, but I do not have that report with me at the moment.
Peter Toon deals in his article with the question of whether it is possible to be in communion with the See of Canterbury and not with the occupant of that See. 

The last three paragraphs of that article are particularly interesting:

If the centripetal forces are to succeed and if the Communion is not to be divided by its present crises over ordination and homosexuality then the definition of what it is to be in Communion with the See of Canterbury will have to be carefully defined and given a comprehensive meaning. For a long time to come Communion will have to include both impaired and broken Communion! 

The possibility cannot be ruled out that centrifugal forces will actually win the day and that the present Anglican Family will break up and assume regional names (e.g. The African Anglican Church, the S E Asia Anglican Church) and also reflect theological divisions (The ECUSA and the Anglican Church of America).

Finally, in all justice and honesty, a way must be found to include in the Anglican Family those who are Anglicans in all respects but who are not in communion with the See of Canterbury – e.g., the Continuing Anglican Churches and the Church of England in South Africa. For this to happen the Communion will have to be essentially orthodox in doctrine, discipline and worship!

In the first paragraph he states precisely the question we are dealing with at this juncture.  And in the last paragraph, he cites the need for an entity remarkably like Common Cause—and this was written in Epiphany 2002, before the consecration of Gene Robinson was even a factor.

Robert S. Munday