Something Else to Sing About

In the last 3 months, forty more congregations have officially aligned with the ACNA, including another here in Kentucky! Details are at the parish blog.

Thine Arm, O Lord

I needed to hear this song, and sing these truths, the past several days. I'm betting somebody else out there does to. Let's keep claiming Isaiah 53!

	Kingsfold 3 vv. (Clyde McClendon, Organist)
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

If you're of a different musical bent, you can enjoy Michael W. Smith's "Healing Rain."

	Michael W. Smith - Healing Rain
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

My Response to the Recent Apostolic Constitution

Is best taken from Anglican Divine, Bp. Jeremy Taylor (sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression):

"What can be supposed wanting in our Church in order to salvation? We have the Word of God, the Faith of the Apostles, the Creeds of the Primitive Church, the Articles of the four first General Councils, a holy liturgy, excellent prayers, perfect sacraments, faith and repentance, the Ten Commandments, and the sermons of Christ, and all the precepts and counsels of the Gospels. We … require and strictly exact the severity of a holy life. … We communicate often, our priests absolve the penitent. Our Bishops ordain priests, and confirm baptised persons, and bless their people and intercede for them. And what could here, be wanting to salvation?”

- Jeremy Taylor, Bp. of Down & Connor (1613-1667)

Spong is Wrong

Recently, John Shelby Spong has shot his most recent salvo across the noses of those who continue to hold the catholic faith and ethic. He calls us the "b" word (bigot) and lumps us in with flat-earthers and slavery defenders (nice strawman). Just as he won't hold dialogue with flat-earthers or slavery defenders (which are where, again?) - so he won't discuss the ethics of same-sex erotic relationships with those who take the opposite side.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either.

In the Episcopal Church - of which he remains some sort of high-ranking ecclesial officer in good standing - this is called "openness" and indaba. (In other words, you need to be open to our innovations on the faith and discipline of the Church, and then listen while we tell you you're an oppressive, morally bankrupt simpleton.) Here are some more excerpts:

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility....I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either.

Even advocates of the revisionist position* admit that the biblical evidence is on the side of the historic faith. But Mr. Spong cares little about the evidence, and even less about the authority of the Scriptures. (In spite of any vows he made to defend them as - some sort of high-ranking ecclesial officer in good standing.) Spong has already admitted that Scripture condemns homosexuality. You can watch it, but here's what he says:

Spong: But let me say that I do not disagree that homosexuality is condemned in Scripture. I do not agree with that.

Ankerberg: Yes, you’ve said that before.

Spong: I think that is obvious. It’s in Leviticus; it’s in the Sodom and Gomorrah story; it’s in the Pauline corpus at least, and probably some other places…

Ankerberg: All right, we’re…

Spong: The issue in my mind is not that. The issue is whether or not the people who lived at the time of the Bible and who wrote about homosexuality understood the scientific meaning of homosexuality.

But, as Jude warned us:

¹⁰ But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. ¹¹Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. ¹²These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; ¹³ wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

Speaking of casting up foam to their own shame...

I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric."

Yeah...we conservative types are the sort that keep condemning the Jews with "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." Oh wait...that's the TEC revisionistas.

He even takes on Abp. Duncan, who has already responded to Mr. Spong's errors (begining with his 1998 12 Feces...er, Theses).**

I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan.

Yeah...real nuanced. All of those guys are so practically alike as to make no distinction possible, much less desirable.

To be honest, Spong's problems go much deeper than his disregard for the Scripture's teaching on homosexual behavior. His big problem is with God Almighty. Spong casts scorn on the whole notion of theism, and has such an unnuanced fundamentalist materialist bent to his mindset that he's incapable of making any sense of the Resurrection or Ascension (much less the Incarnation).

And because of that, he is to be pitied. Because, one thing is sure - the striving is over. The battle is won, and there's no need to argue about it. Rather, it's time to simply proclaim the dogma and live into that truth. So here's some help to do just that.

	Woodley Ensemble - The Strife is O'er (Palestrina)
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

* Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, p. 30, and Spong himself during the “Martin/Spong Debate on Sexual Ethics,” transcript from The John Ankerberg Show.
cf. J. Gordon Melton, The Churches Speak On: Homosexuality; Official Statements from Religious Bodies and Ecumenical Organizations (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991), xxii.

** John Spong: An apostle no longer

Beloved in the Lord,

It was with the most profound sorrow that I received and read the twelve theses of John Spong, recently published. At point after point these few sentences contain an explicit denial of the Christian faith. The incarnation and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ are denied; the efficacy of prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit are declared null; scripture and creeds are no longer trustworthy guides.

The man set aside as Bishop of Newark for the last twenty years has placed his theses before the Christian world and called for debate. The debate will be between those who profess the Christian faith and one who offers some other religion.

As I travel about our diocese, I see the pain and confusion which this shepherd-become-wolf is causing my people, not to mention that wider fellowship which is all the baptized in Christ Jesus. What this errant brother is doing must be named for what it is, not apostolate but apostasy.

What John Spong proposes as a reformed Christianity abandons every revealed essential. It is not Christianity. It is a counterfeit.

Everything I promised to do at my ordination requires that I speak clearly at this moment. Most especially pastoral compassion and gospel witness require a timely word both to the people of God and to the world at large.

We in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh -- like Christians in every age -- have our disagreements about how the boundaries of Christian response to the cultures and peoples among which we minister are to be shaped. When we disagree here, it is because of our deep conviction for and experience of the One God -- both transcendent and immanent -- revealed in Scripture, Tradition and Reason as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not the circumstance with which John Spong confronts us. We are confronted now by one who has become an outsider, one who by his philosophical, intellectual and credal shifts no longer reasons out of that bedrock of Christian faith that always shapes our local debates.

Pray for the Episcopal Church and for our Anglican Communion as the bishops prepare to gather at Lambeth. We are a worldwide fellowship of immense missionary faithfulness and of magnificent local diversity. Nevertheless, we must also be a communion that can recognize when an apostle is one no longer, or when a teaching must be declared utterly false

Faithfully your bishop,

+Robert VII Pittsburgh

ReForm Responds re Rome

Reform Initial Response To ‘Apostolic Constitution’ Announcement

Revd Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform, makes four points as an initial response to today’s announcement from the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster:

“Anglicans concerned about protecting the basic Christian faith need not go to Rome, because we now have the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA (UK)) which holds together those who want to stop the orthodox faith being eroded. We can remain Anglican. Furthermore, the FCA Primates have recognised that problems with episcopal oversight are arising here in the UK. They have expressed the hope that these will be solved locally, but if not, they are willing to step in.”

“This development highlights the need for robust legislative provision to cater for those who cannot agree to women bishops, such as that recently suggested by the Revision Committee.”

“If priests really are out of sympathy with the C of E’s doctrine (as opposed to the battles we are having over women’s ministry and sexuality), then perhaps it is better they make a clean break and go to Rome. However, when they do, they will have to accommodate themselves to Rome’s top-down approach to church life, whereas the C of E has always stressed the importance of decision making at the level of the local church.”

“It is illusory to pretend that this development is an outcome of ecumenical dialogue. It illustrates the difficulties the C of E faces and the need for stronger leadership, rather than the ‘softly softly’ approach so far taken to those holding liberal views who are splitting the church.”

No Place Like Rome

Big news from the See of Rome and the See of Canterbury. Details here.