The Church of England's recent Synod on the Prayers for Love and Faith resulted in an official statement which claims to reaffirm the Church's long-taught stance on marriage while it actually makes way for prayers of blessing for same-sex relationships. A thoughtfully written article can be found here on Anglican Ink. I was struck by this excerpt from the statement: That this Synod, recognising the commitment to learning and deep listening to God and to each other of the Living in Love and Faith process, and desiring with God’s help to journey together while acknowledging the different deeply held convictions within the Church: (a) lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church; (b) recommit to our shared witness to God’s love for and acceptance of every person... To demonstrate the falsity of this concept, we need only substitute one word in place of another and see what the effect would be: "...lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to pedophile people and the harm that pedophile people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church..." A homosexual physical act is a sexual sin. An adult sexual act with a young child is likewise a sexual sin. Should the Church "lament and repent" over its "failure to be welcoming" toward pedophiles? Does the Church's insistence that pedophile sex acts (and even the very act of looking with lust upon a child) are sins constitute a harm worked against pedophiles? Isn't the Church actually showing love when it teaches that both homosexual acts and pedophilia are sexual sins, and that God calls each person to repent of, resist, and avoid sinning as an act of true love? Doesn't genuine love for God demonstrate itself in reverential fear of God, in a desire to please Him, and in striving to keep His statutes? Doesn't genuine love for one's neighbor exclude enticing that neighbor into committing sins with us? Most certainly it does. What will be next for the C of E? Will they create a special prayer of blessing for pedophiles? For rapists? For drug dealers? For thieves? Well, I suppose they must; otherwise they will have to feel guilt over not being "welcoming" enough to those people. After all, rapists, pedophiles, thieves, and wholesalers of methamphetamines or heroin deserve to have a rich, full experience in the life of the Church, don't they?
My wife made a point from scripture that I had never thought about: Mar 6:17-18 For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife: for he had married her. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife. Jesus was fully aware that John the Baptist had criticized Herod for violating God's law by marrying his brother Philip's wife while Philip lived. (If Philip had died, marrying a brother's wife could be allowed, but only if there were no progeny--no heirs--and since Philip and his wife had a son, the marriage would still have been wrong even if Philip were deceased.) Why didn't Jesus correct John the Baptist for speaking so unlovingly and for causing emotional harm to Herod and Herodias? After all, doesn't love override the importance of speaking out against sin? Wasn't John being unloving, perhaps even hateful? Apparently, Jesus recognized that it's fully appropriate to call a sin "a sin."
Another interesting article from Virtue Online. It implies that the CofE bishops favor doing away with the traditional stance on marriage, but since they cannot obtain the necessary 2/3 majority in all houses, they devised this work-around method of blessing same-sex relationships while stating (tacked on in the final paragraph) that the traditional teaching remains unchanged. Thus they have their cake and can eat it, too.
Some of my African bishops have become entirely too invested in these happenings. I remind them that our communion has never been formally recognized by Canterbury so whatever goes on there has little bearing on our work.
I smiled when I read your comment on the African bishops. I have sat down and spoken with an Anglican Catholic Priest that is also a Benedictine and lived in South Africa for a number of years before coming to the USA in 2022. He spoke of the Dioceses in Africa and the local parishes. It sounds like it is a very different world there in terms of being Anglican in name-only in many instances. Sounds like the parishes are given a great deal of leeway in what they format and preach as teachings. He said in some instances, a parish may appear to be a little fiefdom and the priest and his wife are the baron and baroness. I queried about the GAFCON writings and other things that came to mind and he told me there was much local freedom to adhere to things or not. This priest is now in VA in the USA as a parish-priest and Prior of the Benedictine Priory being set up there. He is happy to be there.
Where in VA is this Priory being established? I constantly get asked about legitimate monastic sites in the US. Unfortunately, too many seem to be in someone's basement or garage and totally unfit for hosting a retreat.
Fredricksburg VA at Saint Luke's Anglican Church. The priest's name is Fr. Damien Trudeau, OSB. He has both his own and the parish pages on Facebook and is getting them up online on a web-site. The Priory is named Stilfontein, I believe.
In modern thought, this is taken as a self-evident truism. However, I wonder how we reconcile this stance with I Corinthians 5? 1Co 5:1-5,12-13 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord... For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” (the latter cites Deut. 17:7, apparently: So you shall purge the evil from your midst.) Nowadays, we not only welcome "the evil person among us," we pronounce blessings upon their sinful behaviors. And we even ordain some of them to lead the church.
Wow pretty resounding votes. The CofE has really stepped into it this time. In the news coverage of this, I think I saw condemnations from Provinces on every continent on earth. Alphabet people are welcome in only the same way as all the other sinners are welcome- upon repentance. You don’t glory in your sin, right? Neither do I. Neither can they.
From "The Pastor's Heart" 12 Primates of the Global South Provinces have issued a statement saying ‘The Church of England has departed from the historic faith, passed down from the Apostles.’ The Primates - who are all national leaders within the denomination - say that the Church of England has disqualified herself from leading the Anglican Communion. They say the Church of England has chosen to break communion with those provinces who remain faithful to the historic biblical faith. The Chair of Global South, Archbishop Justin Badi of South Sudan, says they are withdrawing support for Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who has led his House of Bishops to make recommendations that run contrary to the faith & order of the orthodox provinces in the communion. Youtube: The Church of England departs the historic Christian Faith - with Archbishop Justin Badi Arama