Welby's Wobble: "I'm absolutely not saying 'Unity at all costs' -- quite the reverse"
COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
December 8, 2014
A recent full page interview with Archbishop Justin Welby in The Times contained the following quotes.
WELBY:I think, realistically, we've got to say that despite all efforts there is a possibility that we will not hold together, or not hold together for a while. I could see circumstances in which there could be people moving apart and then coming back together, depending on what else happens."
VOL: The Global South will not formally break with Canterbury because their identity as Anglicans would be lost and they depend on that connection to be Anglicans. However, that does not mean they will turn up a conferences and meetings because the Archbishop of Canterbury calls them. That was obvious at the last Lambeth Conference and the later Primates meeting in Dublin. A third of the communion's bishops were no shows in defiance of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is now a de facto split not a de jure one.
WELBY: Learning to disagree without hatred has been a theme of the [my] Archbishop's ministry. I argue that "good disagreement" is vital (although some churches did not accept that). I do not want to see the same level of bitterness that had characterized some disputes in the past. There has been a danger of parts of the Anglican Communion drifting into that.
VOL: This is not about hatred unless Welby is prepared to admit that the hatred, animosity and name calling is coming from liberals and revisionists against the orthodox. The lawsuits for properties is an example of ecclesiastical hatred couched in the language of episcobabbble about saving the churches for God's mission in the world -- whatever the blazes that means. It has nothing to do with the saving love of God in Christ to redeem a fallen world.
WELBY: [I] could not ask people to give up views they strongly hold. But what you can ask is for people to engage with those with whom they disagree, not expecting to be convinced, or even to convince, but to understand the other person's humanity and why they come to such a different view.
VOL: The African primates have been "engaging" liberal western archbishops for at least fifteen years and gotten nowhere. At one point in Dromantine, Ireland, things got so bad the Primates could not even take Holy Communion together! That was in 2005, nearly a decade ago. I was there. Has anything really changed?
WELBY: Unity, however, cannot come at the price of truth and integrity. "I'm absolutely not saying 'Unity at all costs' -- quite the reverse. Truth and integrity matter hugely." This is equally true for the Church of England, especially on the question of women bishops, approved by the Synod in November.
VOL: Yes, truth and integrity do matter. That is why the Global South and GAFCON Primates will not waver in their resolve not to embrace pansexuality. If I understand the women bishops correctly, it was a group of laity that voted against women bishops on the first round, but were then overridden on the second vote or bullied into submission. Take your pick. They caved and now the Church of England will have a woman bishop shortly. Any allowance for what the orthodox think or believe will be marginalized, if not overruled.
A case in point is the appointment of a new bishop for Maidstone. He is an evangelical, I am told, who holds to traditional views on headship (read no to women bishops). One liberal, Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of the St. Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow, called it "a bad idea." He opined, "One day [this will] be called (inaccurately) the Anglican Heresy." Holdsworth points out that this "compromise" is one that is borne exclusively by women. "I see no way of resolving the ecclesiastical nonsense of continuing to consecrate men who won't accept female episcopal ministry now. I wouldn't turf anyone out but I certainly wouldn't make the situation worse in this way."
So tolerance for women, little or none for evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, who hold different views on headship. Tolerance only goes one way.
WELBY: It's all very well making declarations. The difficult bit is living together and working it out in practice. And we're absolutely determined to do that. It's very tough. But it's a prize that is so absolutely worth going for.
VOL: It is the liberal pansexualists who have made all the "declarations." It is they who have wanted to change the received teaching on the church about sexuality, not the orthodox. The orthodox want to keep things the way they have always been; because of it they have been vilified, ostracized, sued, bullied, declared homophobic, uninclusive...the list goes on and on. I have been literally following the Primates for more than a dozen years -- traipsing from the middle of Brazil to Dromantine, Dublin, the Middle East, England, Nairobi, -- and I have attended three Lambeth Conferences. The last one showed how disastrous the whole sexual enterprise has become. Welby should come clean and admit that during his global trotting to 38 provinces that he could not even talk about the real issues with Nigerian Archbishop Nicholas Okoh because he already knew what he thought and so the conversation would have gone nowhere fast. They could not talk about the ONE besetting sin in the Anglican Communion - homosexuality, even though only 1.5% of the population is homosexual. They have twisted an entire culture, whole nations and now the churches are falling all over themselves to accommodate them.
WELBY: [I and my] wife travelled together because [I] believed that the visits were personal and pastoral, not just professional. And all the churches that [I] visited understood that. "In the life of the Church, we are all caught up together by the spirit of God through Jesus. You don't divide up the professional and the pastoral in that way." People in Africa, India and the Middle East always asked about each other's families, even if they have never met them.
VOL: Yes, the Africans and the Middle East always ask about families; it is in their DNA and they don't separate their professional and pastoral lives, and that is why they cannot and will not tolerate any talk about sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. What does Welby not understand about that? What world is he living in? He talks endlessly about reconciliation, but in North America that ALWAYS means capitulation before the pansexual lobby who are vicious, nasty people. There will never be reconciliation. Never. For example, where is the reconciliation between Virginia Bishop Shannon Johnson and Truro priest Tory Baucum, much touted by Welby? No where. This is about accommodation, not reconciliation. It is a temporary arrangement. Sooner or later, the priest will either take his flock and leave or he will run back to TEC to keep the property, which I don't think will happen.
WELBY:[We were] determined to show that they saw reconciliation as overcoming the barrier between rich and poor. That's why it's so important to show up, rather than just say it from far away. More than any other Archbishop in Anglican history, my wife and I have certainly shown up.
VOL: Reconciliation is a myth. It is in his mind and only in his mind. If reconciliation was at all possible, it would have shown up under George Carey before Williams came on the scene. It failed back then and continues to fail as an idea to this day. Had reconciliation been possible there would have been no need to form the AMIA, and later the ACNA. These Episcopalians fled TEC because they refused to compromise the gospel. They were despised and rejected for not rolling over to sodomy so they were forced to start over in the name of the Holy One who demands that we be holy with our bodies. If reconciliation is such a big deal, why doesn't Welby ask, nay demand, that Jefferts Schori stop spending millions on property wars. If TEC believes so passionately in their understanding of the gospel, why are empty churches being sold for Mosques, and to any group other than Anglican groups? Why not a little reconciliation and tolerance there? Mrs. Jefferts Schori is on record saying she would sooner sell parishes to saloon keepers than to another Anglican branch of the communion, which she says she believes in so passionately.
And while we are at it, why don't you tell her to stop using TEC money to buy elections for accomodationist archbishops in Africa so they will roll over to TEC's point of view on sex?
Furthermore, stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on junkets for wavering African archbishops who need money to feed their poor, but who will gladly hole up in fancy Manhattan hotels to listen to a lot of episcobabble on reconciliation that the vast majority of the Communion doesn't believe in.
As things now stand, there probably won't be another Lambeth Conference because the Global South will be no shows. Ditto for any more primatial gatherings. Nothing has changed since Rowan Williams departed as ABC. Nothing. Of the four instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion, only the Archbishop of Canterbury is relevant to maintain the Anglican connection. The Lambeth Conference, The Anglican Consultative Council and The Primates' Meeting are all up for grabs and have now been made largely irrelevant by the Global South.
The name of the Anglican game now is collegial and relational, not structural or hierarchical. The Global South has FCA/GAFCON and the Global South Primates, along with the AMiE and the ACNA. The ACNA has been back-doored into the Communion through the Global South Primates and does not need any further recognition by Canterbury.
A new day has dawned.
END