This week the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) of the United States has decided to repudiate the moratorium it had previously agreed to on the ordination as Bishops of practicing homosexuals. This was subsequently ratified by the Bishops of that Convention.
This places the Archbishop of Canterbury and others in the wider Anglican Federation in the gravest of difficulties. There are very difficult decisions that the Archbishop and the other Primates will be called upon to make as to the standing of TEC within the Anglican Federation at what is undoubtedly a departure from the Faith as the Church of England has received it. Indeed, if the Archbishop and others do not deal with this in the firmest manner then there will almost certainly be a further breakdown in the unity of the Anglican Federation that will have critical consequences.
This unilateral action of TEC also has very significant implications for ecumenical relations with the Universal Church and the consequences brought about by this action will not lead to greater unity. Failure to act decisively on the part of the Archbishop and others may also lead to serious questions with regard to these two Provinces of Canterbury and York and their commitment to orthodoxy in faith and morals.
It is now clear that, for many Anglicans, TEC will cease to be recognised as part of the Church. And yet we should not be in any doubt that what has precipitated the likelihood of separation is, for Catholic Christians simply the “presenting issue.” Over the past forty years TEC has diminished with each unorthodox innovation it has embraced. Many extreme evangelicals will want to present this as being about the abandonment of orthodoxy with regard to homosexuality, but that will not do. For all too often they seem to convey the idea that they haven’t got that problem, while turning a blind eye to remarriage after divorce and couples co-habiting before marriage. Christian Moral Theology is a not a pick and mix assortment, but a body of doctrine that forms a whole. It is that wholeness that TEC has abandoned.
This places the Archbishop of Canterbury and others in the wider Anglican Federation in the gravest of difficulties. There are very difficult decisions that the Archbishop and the other Primates will be called upon to make as to the standing of TEC within the Anglican Federation at what is undoubtedly a departure from the Faith as the Church of England has received it. Indeed, if the Archbishop and others do not deal with this in the firmest manner then there will almost certainly be a further breakdown in the unity of the Anglican Federation that will have critical consequences.
This unilateral action of TEC also has very significant implications for ecumenical relations with the Universal Church and the consequences brought about by this action will not lead to greater unity. Failure to act decisively on the part of the Archbishop and others may also lead to serious questions with regard to these two Provinces of Canterbury and York and their commitment to orthodoxy in faith and morals.
It is now clear that, for many Anglicans, TEC will cease to be recognised as part of the Church. And yet we should not be in any doubt that what has precipitated the likelihood of separation is, for Catholic Christians simply the “presenting issue.” Over the past forty years TEC has diminished with each unorthodox innovation it has embraced. Many extreme evangelicals will want to present this as being about the abandonment of orthodoxy with regard to homosexuality, but that will not do. For all too often they seem to convey the idea that they haven’t got that problem, while turning a blind eye to remarriage after divorce and couples co-habiting before marriage. Christian Moral Theology is a not a pick and mix assortment, but a body of doctrine that forms a whole. It is that wholeness that TEC has abandoned.
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