Abusing the Fathers

From the archives of Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity

The Windsor Report’s Misleading Appeal to Nicea

by William J. Tighe

A year ago, after the uproar over the consecration as bishop of New Hampshire of the notorious Vicki Gene Robinson—the Episcopal priest who divorced his wife and subsequently openly entered a homosexual relationship that continues to this day—the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a committee to look into the matter. The consecration clearly contradicted the 1998 Lambeth Conference’s resolution declaring such relationships to be incompatible with the Christian faith, and the “Lambeth Commission” was to recommend ways in which the Anglican Communion could maintain the highest possible degree of communion.

The ensuing “Windsor Report,” released on October 18, 2004, called for moratoria on the ordination of all non-celibate homosexuals and on the approval of rites for blessing same-sex “partnerships,” as well as for an end to the intervention of traditionalist bishops (usually from Africa or Asia) in the dioceses of “revisionist” bishops. It called both traditionalist and revisionist groups to express regret for their actions, which were deemed to be incompatible with the tangible and intangible bonds that held the Anglican Communion together.

Wright’s Defense

N. T. (“Tom”) Wright, the bishop of Durham in the Church of England, was a member of the commission, and in various places since the issuance of the report has defended it. He has for some years deservedly enjoyed the reputation of a first-rate Scripture scholar who has been able to counteract and debunk revisionist—read, if you will, heretical or anti-Christian—views of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord and of the authority of the Bible.

He appeals particularly to those “conservative evangelical” Christians who wish to uphold a generally high view of the authority of Scripture in doctrine and morals, but wish to leave room for some “developments,” such as the ordination of women, which Wright supports.

Wright has, in particular, defended the report’s implicit censure of the intervention of orthodox Anglican bishops in the dioceses of revisionist ones in the United States and Canada. In a report published in the liberal-leaning English Roman Catholic weekly The Tablet, he justified this censure on the basis that such interventions were “in contravention not only of Anglican custom but of the Nicene decrees on the subject.”

The theory of the inviolable integrity of diocesan boundaries has underpinned the statements of more than one or two Episcopal bishops in recent years, such as Peter Lee of Virginia and Neil Alexander of Atlanta. The result of the theory that “heresy is preferable to schism” and “schism is worse than heresy” has been the belief among influential conservative Anglicans that the faithful must put up with an unending stream of doctrinal absurdities and moral enormities.

In an interview with Christianity Today, Wright insisted that “border crossings” are not only “disruptive” but prohibited by the Council of Nicea. “And I think not a lot of people know this, but it’s important to say this was a question that the early fathers faced at the same time as they were hammering out the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, and that they gave it their time to say people should not do this because that’s not how episcopacy works.” He insisted that “the real charge” against the offending dioceses

is that they were going ahead with innovations without giving the proper theological rationale, without paying attention to the rest of the communion, without doing all the things which as Anglicans we all thought we were signed up to doing before people make innovations. The bishops and archbishops who have intervened in other people’s provinces and dioceses are, in effect, at that level making the same error.

The interviewer then noted that one theologian believed that, in the early Church, orthodox bishops considered a heretical bishop’s see vacant and would go into his diocese. “It’s not simply as easy as that, because who says that so-and-so is a false teacher?” Wright responded. Bishop John Spong would describe the Evangelical former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, as “a false teacher. . . . So you have to have some way of getting a handle on this and not simply one bishop saying that his next-door neighbor is out of line and therefore he’s going to invade. That has never been the Anglican way.”

As Bishop Wright’s grasp of the church fathers’ theory and practice seems a bit weak in these areas—and as he was clearly the most scholarly member of the commission—it may be useful to pursue the subject a bit further. Less can be said for the church fathers’ support for the commission’s claims than Wright asserts.

A regrettable feature of the Windsor Report is its lack of documented notes and references to back up its claims and assertions. For example, it simply cites “the ancient norm of the Church” for its claims about the unity of all Christians in one place and for its rationale against the intervention of outside bishops, without offering any evidence at all. It never quotes any “Nicene decrees on the subject,” to use Bishop Wright’s phrase, though an allusion to one of Nicea’s canons, of doubtful relevance, is tucked away in the report.

Inapplicable Canons

The Council of Nicea, which met from May to August of a.d. 325 and is most famous for its formulation of the original version of the Nicene Creed, also produced twenty canons, or rules, to settle problems or fix abuses in the Church. Several of the canons concern the relations of bishops with one another and of clergy with their bishops. Significantly for the present case, none have any legal force in any contemporary Anglican church.

But more importantly, none of them seem to have any real applicability to the situation of the Anglican Communion, or the Episcopal Church, today. If any one of them underlies Bishop Wright’s oblique reference, it must be Canon 16. Members of the clergy, it declares,

who have the audacity, not considering the fear of God and not knowing the Church’s rule, to abandon their churches, must not under any circumstances be received in another church but by all means must be forced to return to their proper communities, and if they refuse, they are to be properly excommunicated. In addition, if anyone dares to take someone who is under the authority of another bishop and to ordain him in his own church without the consent of the bishop in whose clergy he was enrolled, let the ordination be regarded as null.

This canon obviously deals with “clergy flight” and “clergy poaching”: It assumes a community of orthodox belief between the churches and bishops concerned, and says nothing at all about interventions in churches whose bishops have abandoned orthodoxy of belief and practice and have begun to oppress those of their flock who continue to uphold it, even if that “oppression” consists only in contradicting that orthodoxy and furthering those who teach and act against it.

But while I was puzzling over Wright’s invocation of this inapplicable canon, I found an allusion to the eighth canon early in the report. In this passage, the report deplores “ as now part of the problem we face” the breaking of communion with the Episcopal Church by other Anglican churches, attempts by dissenters in America to “distance themselves” from the Episcopal Church, and the interventions of archbishops from other Anglican churches.

Then it comments: “This goes not only against traditional and oft-repeated Anglican practice [alluding to the 1988 and 1998 Lambeth Conferences] but also against some of the longest-standing regulations of the early undivided church (Canon 8 of Nicea).”

The Pure Ones

So what does the canon say? It is one of the longer ones, and it concerns the re-entry into the Church of “the so-called ‘pure ones’.” It required them to “promise in writing to accept and to follow the rulings of the Catholic Church,” primarily to have communion with those who renounced the faith during persecutions but had since been given a period of penance and a date for their reconciliation with the Church.

In places that had only “pure ones” as clergy, they should keep their status, but if a “pure one” wanted to be admitted to the clergy in a place that had “a bishop or a priest of the Catholic Church . . . it is evident that the bishop of the Church should keep the dignity of bishop.” A bishop of the “pure ones”

is to have the rank of priest unless the bishop consents to let him have the honor of his title. But if he is not so disposed, let the bishop give him a place as a chorepiscopus [i.e., a bishop who exercised some supervision over Christian communities in the rural areas, while being himself subordinate to the bishop of a nearby city] or as a priest so that he can appear as being integrated into the clergy. Without this provision, there would be two bishops in the city.

“The pure ones” was the name given, perhaps self-given, to a schismatic group known as the Novatianists. They originated in the aftermath of the great persecution—the first empire-wide persecution—launched against the Church by the Roman Emperor Decius in 249–251. Before that persecution, a Christian who renounced Christianity under pressure and then wished to return to the Church could only be readmitted to the Eucharist when on his deathbed.

In the aftermath of the persecution, which saw apostasies on a large scale, the bishop of Rome, Cornelius, allowed the “lapsed” to be readmitted after some years of public penitence, which involved, among other things, standing in a particular place during the Church’s Liturgy and leaving before Communion. Most bishops elsewhere adopted this practice as well, but in Rome, Pope Cornelius was opposed by the priest Novatian, whose followers elected him bishop in opposition to Cornelius, and in the ensuing years the schism spread throughout the Roman Empire.

The Novatianists were moral rigorists, best known for their absolute prohibition of second marriages under any circumstances (including after the death of a spouse) and their refusal to readmit the lapsed to Communion. In every other respect, though, their beliefs were thoroughly orthodox. A Novatianist bishop turned up at the Council of Nicea, where he was as vehement in his opposition to the views of the heretic Arius as any of the other bishops there. It was only when he went on to insist on the exclusion of the lapsed from Communion that his Novatianist allegiance came to light, and he was ejected from the council.

Of all the various heretical or schismatic Christian sects, the Novatianists were viewed with the most indulgence, as this canon indicates. Although it was common at the time to regard as “heretical” all Christian sects that pertinaciously and as a matter of principle separated themselves from the “Catholic and Apostolic Church,” in practice the council treated groups of them who wished to rejoin the Church as though they were simply schismatics.

In fact, few Novatianists took advantage of this offer. Their church, or “denomination,” continued to exist as a rigorous and “pure” alternative to the established Church in parts of the Eastern Roman Empire for some three or four centuries afterwards.

Dealing with Defectors

It is hard to see how this canon has anything to do with the troubles of contemporary Anglicanism that evoked the Windsor Report. The canon does uphold the unity of the local church, but the situation it addresses is the reunion of a schismatic group with the Church, not the appropriate response of bishops to the defection of one of their brethren from their common orthodoxy. However, the latter type of situation did arise in the fourth century, in the long aftermath of the Council of Nicea, and later still.

The main purpose of the Council of Nicea was to judge the views of the Alexandrian priest and theologian Arius, who held that Jesus was a creature—a divine being created by God before the angels, the cosmos, and mankind, but a creature nevertheless. Nicea condemned Arius’s views, and its creed confessed the full co-divinity and co-eternity of “the everlasting Son of the Father.”

However, since the controversy continued unabated after Nicea, and since Emperor Constantine had wanted the council to promote ecclesiastical harmony, the fact that it signally failed to produce such harmony induced him, within a few short years, to attempt to promote various theological compromises that would reconcile the Arians and the Niceans. (Many of the most influential bishops around the emperor were sympathetic to some degree with Arius.)

Among the most vigorous and uncompromising upholders of Nicea and its creed was the young archbishop of Alexandria, Athanasius (c. 296–373), who as a priest had accompanied his predecessor to Nicea. His vigorous opposition to any compromise earned him the hostility of the bishops who had most influence with the emperor, who himself in the last decade of his life (he died in 337) increasingly regarded Athanasius as a disturber of the peace, and finally exiled him to what is today the German Rhineland.

After Constantine’s death, as his Arianizing son Constantius became master, first of the East and then (in 350) of the whole Roman Empire, imperial policy shifted from conciliation to coercion of the adherents of Nicea, and these shifts continued down to the final defeat of Arianism in 381.

As time went on, the whole Church became divided over the question, with bishop opposing bishop. Athanasius was willing, as the conflict intensified—in his case, as early as the mid-340s—to intervene unilaterally in dioceses whose bishops were Arians or compromisers. The historians Socrates and Sozomen, writing in the middle of the next century, record that he ordained men in dioceses whose bishops were tainted with Arianism to serve the orthodox upholders of Nicea, and that he did so without seeking or obtaining the permission of those bishops.

We do not know for sure whether Athanasius ordained bishops for these orthodox communities faced with hostile heterodox bishops, or only priests and deacons. Socrates’s account in his Ecclesiastical History is obscure, stating only that “in some of the churches also he performed ordination, which afforded another ground of accusation against him, because of his undertaking to ordain in the dioceses of others.”

In his Ecclesiastical History, Sozomen wrote of Athanasius’s ejection of Arianizing clergy when he returned to Egypt from his second exile around 346, and added, “It was said at that time that, when he was traveling through other countries, he effected the same change if he happened to visit churches which were under the Arians. He was certainly accused of having dared to perform the ceremony of ordination in cities where he had no right to do so.”

Violable Boundaries

And he was not alone. Other orthodox bishops acted similarly.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, yet another historian (and bishop), tells us in his Ecclesiastical History that a contemporary and collaborator of Athanasius, Eusebius of Samosata, traveled around many of the eastern portions of the Roman Empire disguised as a soldier, and where he found Arian or Arianizing bishops, he ordained deacons, priests, and even bishops to care for the orthodox and oppose the official bishops and their supporters. He names five bishops Eusebius consecrated.

Another bishop, Lucifer of Cagliari, wandered throughout the Mediterranean world in support of those who upheld Nicea. Both Socrates and Theodoret record his intervention in the divided church of Antioch. In 362 he consecrated the leader of one of the orthodox groups, the leader of the other, larger group having early on in his career appeared to compromise with moderate Arians. The uncompromising orthodox group had never been willing to accept him as their bishop, and the consecration embittered the break between the two and led to a schism that was not to be healed for over fifty years.

Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, conducted ordinations in his native Palestine in defiance of compromising bishops during the Arian crisis. As Socrates relates, he did the same thing many years later in Constantinople, when he was led to believe that John Chrysostom, the patriarch there, supported the errors of Origen.

Details of the activities of such bishops are few, but in the next century, for 85 years after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, both proponents and opponents of that council among the bishops in the eastern parts of the empire were willing to intervene, or intrude, regularly in dioceses whose bishops were on the “ other side.”

All of this allows us to say that any attempt to construct a theory of the inviolability of diocesan boundaries cannot find any support in the theory and practice of the early Church. In the light of this history, Bishop Wright’s invocation of “Nicene decrees” and the Windsor Report’s allusion to “the ancient norm” and “some of the longest-standing regulations” vanishes altogether, and all that is left is “Anglican custom” (Wright) or “traditional and oft-repeated Anglican practice” (Windsor).

Deprived Christians

Those who have followed the actual practices of Anglican churches over the past three decades, in the United States, Canada, and Australia especially, will see how readily proponents of one innovation after another have been willing to abandon norms, decrees, regulations, canons, customs—you name it—to gain their ends.

In the Christianity Today interview, Wright remarked that “the real question at the heart of much of this is, which [are] the things we can agree to differ about and which [are] the things we can’t agree to differ about.” He continued, speaking of modern questions the Nicene fathers he invoked would have thought settled matters of their common faith,

Again and again I hear people on both sides of the argument simply begging that question and assuming that they know without argument that this is something that we can agree to differ about, or assuming that they know without argument this is one of the things we can’t agree to differ about. What we all have to do is to say about any issue—whether it’s lay celebration [of Communion], whether it’s episcopal intervention, whether it’s homosexual practice—

How do we know, and who says which differences make a difference and which differences don’t make a difference?

Speaking for myself as a Catholic with many Anglican friends, the clearest and most instructive (as well as the saddest) lesson of this episode is how sincere and pious Christians, like Bishop Wright, deprive themselves of any compellingly persuasive basis for rallying a forceful “Athanasian” movement to retake their churches from the heterodox innovators who dominate them—and not least because of their own inability, as the bishop’s statements show, to make clear judgments about false teaching and false teachers and to take firm and decisive measures in response. In consequence, they render their own situations hopeless, being able neither to fight nor to flee.

N. T. Wright’s article appeared in the 23 October 2004 issue of The Tablet and may be found at www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-00945. The Christianity Today interview can be found at www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/142/42.0.html. The sources of the quotations from Socrates are (in order): Book II, chapter 24; III.6 and 9; VI.12; those from Sozomen are III.21; and from Theodoret IV.13 and V.4; III.2.

William J. Tighe is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and a faculty advisor to the Catholic Campus Ministry. He is a Member of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.

Christmas and Epiphany Homilies

Layreaders' homilies are ready for Christmas and the Sunday after and for Epiphany and the Sunday after, and are posted with the Advent homilies already there at

http://public.box.net/pastored59658

These are PDF booklets intended for use when a layreader conducts Sunday MP or EP in the absence of a priest. They now have the approval of at least one bishop, as shown in the following letter:

Bishop D. Presley Hutchens, Ordinary of the ACC's Diocese of New Orleans, has recommended Mr. Pacht's homilies to the lay readers and clergy of his Diocese, writing "I am sending this to the layreaders ... for your use. I approve them and believe they will be a great resource
for the year."

This is an extraordinary effort, to meet a real and serious pastoral need, and Mr. Pacht is to be commended for having undertaken to supply it.

John A. Hollister+

----------------------ed pacht

Advent III

I Corinthians 4:1-5

Matthew 11:2-10

Our Collect today contains this petition: “Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight.” These words remind us that the prophet, St. John the Baptist, prepared the way for the Lord’s ministry in Israel by preaching repentance from sin, and by inviting the people to come into the waters of a mikvah, a ritual bath of cleansing that the Greek New Testament calls baptisme, that is, baptism. It draws from two sources, the book of the prophet Malachi and the Gospel of St. Luke. Malachi said: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”1 In the Gospel of Luke the angel Gabriel expounds on this passage of scripture when he announces to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, about John: “And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”2 To understand why the Lord told Peter, James and John, as they came down from the Mount of Transfiguration that Elijah had already come and suffered the fate that would be dished out to the Son of Man, and why he tells the crowd to whom he speaks in today’s Gospel reading (a little further on), “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come,”3 you have to pay attention to what the angel said. John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy, because it was not really a prediction that Elijah would come himself, but that this other prophet would come in the spirit and power that had rested on that Old Testament prophet. Only this time, the Ahab and Jezebel of the period, namely Herod and Herodius, would kill the prophet, John, who confronted their sin; something that the Old Testament king and queen could not do to Elijah.

Where does this phrase come from: “and he shall turn the hearts…?” The very concept of a prophet who turns the hearts comes from that story in the first book of the Kings where Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal. The people of the Northern kingdom of Israel were filled with terrible confusion, having the religion of Baal worship all mixed up with the worship of the true and living God of their fathers (and seemed to have forgotten the golden calves of Jeroboam). Baal worship is the same as the worship of Molech, the god to whom agonized parents would offer their own children in sacrifice, because by this religion they were deceived into a dreadful compulsion. We need to understand something very important. All religions are not the same. We need to understand something else. Whenever Paganism is properly researched we learn of its unspeakable cruelty. I know why the Law of Moses commands that the altars and groves of idols must be torn down. Whether it was the human sacrifice of the so-called peaceful Celts (and the idea of “peaceful Celts” is a historical absurdity), or simply the indifference of the Norse gods who offered no blessings, but only the darkness of fate; whether it was the human sacrifice of Aztecs, or the impersonal nothingness of far Eastern mysticism into which individual consciousness and identity is, at best, swallowed up and lost; whether it is the violence of Islam (that pagan version of monotheism with its god who is alone), or the cruel caste system of Hinduism with its Suhtee ritual banned by the British, in which widows were burned alive at their husband’s funerals (in front of their children and everyone): Paganism is the darkness in which Satan has longed imprisoned and tortured the human race due to its ignorance and fear. And, only the worship of the True God has ever set people free from this cruel tyranny of mind and spirit. That is historical fact, and as such a theme oft repeated in various times and places of human experience, whether or not the neo-Atheist movement wants to face reality.

The people of the Northern kingdom of Israel in Samaria were lost in Baal worship due to the evil queen Jezebel and the weakness of her husband Ahab. Elijah called together the prophets of Baal and challenged them to a supernatural contest. They agreed, and the contest was to see who had the power to bring down fire from heaven to consume an offering. From morning until noon the prophets of Baal called on their god, finally waxing so desperate they resorted to cutting themselves. Elijah called a halt to the spectacle, and summoned the people to gather to him. He made it hard on himself by pouring a large amount of water in a trench around the altar and the dead animal, just to show that no fire could be lit by natural means. Then he prayed:

“LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again.”4

There we see that phrase about the turning of the hearts, the work that God did through his prophet Elijah. The scripture goes on to say:

Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.

This is how their hearts were turned back by the prophet Elijah, back to the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Some modern Bibles have quite dishonestly rendered the Hebrew word for “fathers” in the book of Malachi as “parents.” This is completely unjustified. The word does not mean parents, it means fathers, specifically and clearly. When the ideology of the zeitgeist is allowed to interfere with Bible translation, the results cannot be good. Nothing is more disastrous than loss of fatherhood from homes, and in a larger sense, from a society. The father is the protector and provider, above all, the God appointed head of his family. In this case, when the prophet Malachi speaks of the hearts of the fathers turned back to the children and of the children to the fathers, and the angel expands that to include the turning of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, we dare not lose the meaning, for it is to our loss.

We can speak of the fathers as the fathers of our whole Jewish and Christian heritage, a line dating back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that continues through Moses and the prophets, right up to that Man that Isaiah called “the everlasting father,” our Lord Jesus Christ; the last Adam by whom comes the whole spiritual seed of the redeemed, the Church of the living God to be granted eternal life by means of, and following the pattern of, his resurrection.5

We see the fathers of the Church, and among them the holy fathers who gathered for the Ecumenical Councils. In terms of today’s Collect, which is based on the meaning of today’s Epistle, we must see the fathers who stand in Apostolic Succession, those of us, unworthy as we are apart from the grace of God, who have been ordained to be fathers among the people of God. So writes St. Paul to St. Timothy, “if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?” 6

Today’s Epistle says: “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” This is what the Collect draws from also, for it says: “Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight.” To some, the ministry of the priest takes place only in functionary terms. He fulfills his religious role in services, and does all those social and religious things that they require of him, such as weddings and funerals, and some community things from time to time, like praying at civic events, and so on.

But, to contradict this limitation, and the limitation that some of our own place on the significance of the priesthood, I will quote myself from an article called Priesthood and the Church:

“The priesthood is not only the ministry of the altar. To reduce anything to its main function at the expense of its entirety is a serious mistake. When the Archbishops of England wrote Saepius Officio, they made it very clear that they fully agreed with the teaching of Apostolicae Curae, from the Roman Magesterium, about the nature of the priesthood and Eucharistic sacrifice unique to that office. But, they found fault with the papal document for failing even so much as to mention the pastoral ministry of the priesthood. A priest is always alter Christus, not only when he offers the Eucharist. And, this gives a special sacramental charism to his teaching, his advice, and his fatherly love for the people of God. An individual priest may fail to exercise all the gifts of his office, but he does not lose the sacred character implanted in him. So we do not agree with those who say that the priesthood is only about the ministry at the altar and nothing else. Rather, as the ministry of the Church extends the grace of the Incarnation among mankind, the priesthood extends the graces of the Incarnation among the people of the Church, and does so at all times by the sacramental charism of the indelible character added to the man who is ordained to the priesthood.”

It is our responsibility in this Advent season to call upon the people of the Church to be holy, and to attend to their own salvation, to walk with God in all purity of conscience. What we do is not simply about feeling good. It is far more than a warm and fuzzy feeling that we seek to impart.

As part of my own stewardship in the mysteries of God, for your benefit, I want to plant a thought in your minds. For some of you, this new year that began on the First Sunday in Advent is a good time, especially during this Penitential season, to come and make your first ever private confession. The sacramental power to absolve sins is so important in Anglicanism that it is mentioned directly in our Ordinal. When a priest is ordained, the bishop speaks the words of Christ (that is, he is Christ’s own mouth, through whom the Lord speaks) words from the Gospel of St. John.7 The bishop says these words:

“Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the Imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments; In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Confession followed by Absolution hurts before you do it; but it feels very good after it has been accomplished. When I have gone to another priest for confession, I have had to remind myself that I am there to appear for the prosecution. Jesus Christ is my Advocate, and he plead my case with his own blood as he poured out his soul unto death for me on the cross.8

Quite often people come to church without realizing the wonderful gift imparted to them here. Have you ever wondered why the Church of England added to the list of names that already had been given to this principal service of the Church? In addition to the names “The Holy Eucharist,” “The Divine Liturgy,” and “The Mass,” the English Reformers came up with the name, a name taken directly from scripture, “The Holy Communion.” As St. Paul wrote: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”9 The English Reformers were not rejecting the word “Mass.” But, they wanted to correct a false understanding among the common people, namely that their religious duty was to come and “hear Mass.” So, in that first English Book of Common Prayer in 1549, they named the service: THE SUPPER OF THE LORDE AND THE HOLY COMMUNION, COMMONLY CALLED THE MASSE. The Anglican message about this service is that you come here not simply because it is your religious duty to attend; you come here to receive from God that grace by which he meets the deepest need of your soul. You have that need whether you believe it or not, whether you see it or not, whether it presents itself to your conscience or not. The Holy Communion is not where you come in order to affirm that you are a good person, but where you flee to Christ as a sinner in need of his grace. You have come here today to receive the food and drink of eternal life.

Jesus said:

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world…Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.”10

In the comedy, Life with Father, Clarence Daye, played by William Powell, had a great line: “If there’s one thing the Church should leave alone, it’s a man’s soul.” Well, as “stewards of the mysteries of God” who must give an account for your souls,11 we simply have to meddle. As much as I still encourage you to make a private confession (and to do so without fear, “early and often”), consider the grace that is offered even in the General Confession that comes up shortly. If you want to appropriate what God offers you in the General Confession followed by the General Absolution, then take time before you come here to ask the Holy Spirit to show to you your own sins, not to be morbid, but in order to make a good and sincere confession. Remember the lesson I had to learn for myself: You are, when you confess, appearing for the prosecution. Jesus, your Advocate and the propitiation for our sins, has already appeared for you. He appeared for you on the cross. He everliveth to make intercession for you at the right hand of God. 12 Finally, to summarize the responsibility that stewards of the mysteries of God have within the Church, I quote St. Paul:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.13

1. Malachi 4:5,6
   
2. Luke 1:16, 17
3. vs. 13, 14
4. I Kings 18:36, 37
5. Isaiah 9:6, 7, I Corinthians 15:45f
6. I Tim. 3:5
7. John 20:22, 23
8. Leviticus 17:11, Isaiah 53:12
9. I Corinthians 10:16
10. John 6:51-59
11. Hebrews 13:17
12. Hebrews 7:25
13. II Corinthians 5:17-21

Company Men Who Work Iniquity

I am taking the liberty of posting an article that Fr. Samuel Edwards wrote for Touchstone, a Journal of Mere Christianity shortly after the most dramatic phase of his well known battle with "Lady Jane" Dixon, acting bishopette of Washington, D.C. in 2001, before he left the Episcopal Church. Fr. Edwards had told her that he recognized her as a bishop according to the Canons of the Episcopal church, but could not recognize her sacramentally as a true bishop. This article may help explain his oxymoron, "New Traditionalists."

Samuel L. Edwards on Lessons from the Battle of Accokeek

It is marvelous, though it is not much fun, to have opponents who keep making my case for me: I have been telling people for years that the principal object of our adversaries in the ecclesiastical wars is the acquisition of power, and they just keep proving me right. The principal symbols for power are property— “the kingdoms of the earth”—and money—“the glory of them”—and we know who offers them, and to whom, and what his answer is, and that it must also be our answer.

I have been in the middle of a test case, with significance for all those in similar situations. In mid-December of 2000, the vestry of Christ Church, Accokeek, Maryland, called me to be its rector following a search of more than two years. It is a small parish in rural Maryland, but part of the Episcopal diocese of Washington, D.C. Following the retirement of Bishop Ronald Haines, the “bishop pro tem” is Jane Holmes Dixon.

At the end of the canonically defined period of 30 days in which the bishop must raise any objections to the call, Dr. Dixon had raised no objections, and the vestry and I entered into a binding civil contract. Afterwards, on March 6, 2001, Dr. Dixon informed me that she would not approve the call. Being advised that she was acting outside the canons, I came anyway and took up my duties as rector in late March.

After unsuccessfully attempting to eject me in late May, she set up a competing congregation in my parish and on June 24 filed a federal lawsuit against me and the vestry. It is worth remembering that, in efforts by corrupt religious establishments to get their way, the use of secular magistrates is nothing new: Consult John 19, or refer to the accounts of any number of Paul’s scrapes with the religious and civil authorities of his day.

After hearing arguments in August, the court ruled against us on October 29 and ordered me to vacate the property and the position immediately. We appealed to the Federal Circuit Court, and I moved to temporary quarters in late November. The appeal was argued before a three-judge panel in late January, and a decision is pending at this writing.

The Conflict

While this matter is being fought out on legal grounds, it represents a genuine conflict between two different views of central theological matters. On the one hand, there is Jane Dixon’s revisionist approach to ecclesiology and the doctrine of revelation. In an article published in the diocese’s official newspaper in January she dealt with both.

Ecclesiologically, she subscribes to the modernist misreading of the sixteenth-century Anglican divine Richard Hooker on Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, saying that “Hooker did not ascribe primacy to one over the others, nor do most Anglicans/Episcopalians today.” We, on the other hand, believe as Hooker himself did (and all Anglicans until very recently), that Scripture has the priority and the supremacy, and that reason and antiquity are its servants, not its vice-regents.

As to revelation, she thinks that “most Anglicans agree that God reveals God’s self completely in Jesus of Nazareth. The debate in the Church is that there are those who accept that God continues to reveal God’s self in the world and those who do not accept the idea of ongoing revelation.” Dr. Dixon’s actions (including her claim to Episcopal office) place her squarely in the former group, while we affirm that the revelation of God himself in Jesus Christ was, is, and remains definitive and complete.

Our situation in Accokeek is a microcosm of the larger situation—the contest between truth and power— as it has developed not only in the Episcopal Church and in the first-world portion of the official Anglican Communion, but in all the mainline churches of the West. I would like to reflect on the dynamics and significance of what has been going on in my parish over the last few months.

The struggle in Accokeek is manifested in a clash of generations, in a clash of visions concerning what a parish church (indeed, what the Church as a whole) is for, and in a clash of visions concerning the role of the parish priest. These are rooted in a more fundamental clash between those who seek to conform themselves to the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus and those who seek to conform others to the power that they think they possess, but that in reality possesses them.

Generational Clash

1. The clash of generations. The composition of the pro-diocesan group in Accokeek is somewhat counterintuitive: It is largely made up, not of young radicals, nor even of 40-something boomers, but of members of what the sociologists call “the Silent Generation,” who were born between 1927 and 1943, were growing up during World War II, and thus are largely in their sixties to mid-seventies. A generation that is likely to prove the most generous of all, as a rule its members value peacemaking and are effective managers. They are good team players.

The predominant generation in the pro-diocesan faction is thus one that has been noted for its tendency to be loyal to institutional forms and to avoid questions of substance or conviction. The leadership of the group, interestingly and tellingly, refers to itself as “the Board.”

This generation’s strengths, however, easily turn bad in the absence of a strong vision of the purpose and mission of an institution. As a generation, they tend to be reflexively (as opposed to reflectively) conservative; most of its members in Accokeek are socially and politically conservative or moderate, but none can be accurately described as genuinely traditional—former Bishop Haines’s weird opinions (“we are the real traditionalists and victims of a vast international orthodox conspiracy”) to the contrary notwithstanding. They are, in a word, corporatists.

This generation, as a generation, is characterized by a vague, underlying, and unspoken assumption that there is no objective truth to which institutions are obliged to conform. It is arguably the first generation that manifested as a generational characteristic the fruits of modernistic relativism—a generation in which the members had no transcendent good for which to sacrifice themselves because they had been subtly trained that there was no knowable truth. Their intellectual formation took place during the very time that modernist assumptions were coming to undisputed dominance in the academy.

It is also arguable that this is the sort of attitude that would have had a better chance to develop in the absence of strong fathers (who were away fighting fascism or wrestling with their own experiential demons after returning from the fray) and under the tutelage of rear-area types—the sort of people referenced by Wilfred Owen in his poem “At a Calvary near the Ancre”:

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the State,
But those who love the greater love
Lay down their lives: They do not hate.

Corporatism’s Appeal

Because members of this generation tend to treat questions of institutional purpose and objective truth as issues of, at best, secondary significance, they are particularly susceptible to corporatist appeals.

The diocesan powers and their willing accomplices in Accokeek have played on this in several ways. For instance, one of them—a highly intelligent and politically skilled former college English teacher—wrote an article in which I was accused of being unacceptable because my views were not agreeable to “the true Episcopal faith.”

Now this is an interesting selection of terms, not least because it confirms something I have long suspected, which is the existence in the mind of revisionist and corporatist Episcopalians of something called “the Episcopal faith,” which is presumably distinct from “the Christian faith”—a bifurcation alien to the Anglican ethos. However, it is a selection of terms that for the tactical purposes of Jane Dixon and her allies is difficult to beat since it plays upon the Silent Generation’s veneration for corporate structures.

Another instance of the skillful use of corporatist icons in pursuit of their goals is the way the diocese never has sent anyone other than a bishop or bishop’s staffer to deal with the members of their faction here. Episcopalian members of the Silent Generation seem by and large to assume, in the face of all contrary evidence, that to suspect a bishop of insincerity, deceit, or outright heresy is an act of impiety. The underlying assumption of the pro-diocesan faction, Jane Dixon, and ECUSA, in general, is that there is no higher Shepherd than the bishop to whom they are to render account.

One parishioner in the diocesan faction has been heard to criticize my and the vestry’s resistance to Jane Dixon’s impositions and aggressions in these terms: “They ought to do what she says, because she’s the boss.” An instance of higher octane corporatism is difficult to imagine.

This is the generation of “the man in the gray flannel suit.” It is also the generation of most of the senior leadership of the mainline denominations, ECUSA included. This is the generation whose members tend to be adept at managing institutions, but not at leading them, for they have no authentic vision, which brings me to item 2.

Parish Visions

2. The clash over visions of the parish. This clash might be called “parish as community institution versus parish as transformative agent.” Those who constitute the pro-diocesan faction are characterized by a vision of the nature and purpose of the parish church that is distinctly different from that espoused (at least implicitly) by the majority of the active congregation.

For example, the parish for some years had been the site of a school that had only a tenuous connection to the church. The school accumulated so much debt that, in the end, the vestry had no choice but to close it. Much of the minority faction opposed this move and seem to have been willing to let the parish sink into financial dependence upon the diocese so long as the school (which they consider to have been an “important community ministry”) survived.

A previous rector chose, on the floor of the diocesan convention, to disavow the parish’s own statement criticizing the pansexualist “Statement in Koinonia” (authored by the former bishop of Newark, John Spong, and affirmed by the diocese of Washington), then publicly denounced parishioners who disagreed with him. He was much loved by the minority faction as a “nice man” who should not have been challenged for his personal opinions and who was hounded from the parish by “fundamentalists.”

It appears that, to this group, the parish church is intended to function as a sort of religious adjunct to the surrounding community that does not distinguish the wants of that community from its genuine needs.

The underlying assumption here is that there is nothing in the nature and attitudes of the community or its members that requires transformation. Thus, the parish exists to bless the way things are, to reassure its members that they are, after all, nice people.

Such an environment is very comfortable for what John Wesley classically described as “the almost Christian”: the superficially friendly, decent, natural man with religious affections who is able to say, “the Word of the Lord,” after the Scripture readings and to recite the Creeds as gestures of communal solidarity but without any sense that he ought actually to believe—much less frame his life around—what the Scriptures and the Creeds say.

This sort of (usually intermittent) pew-sitter in fact is usually discomfited only by the presence near at hand of people who actually believe that what they hear in Scripture is the Word of the Lord and what they say in the Creed provides a foundation on which they may be built up as living stones in the true temple of the Lord.

It does not help matters that such an attitude about the purpose of the Church has a long history among English and American Anglicans: It is the same attitude that nearly killed the Church of England more than once and which both the Evangelical and Catholic revivals—and now the Evangelical-Catholic revival—were raised up to challenge.

Amaziah or Amos

3. The clash of visions of the priest. This last clash can be called, “the priest as institutional flack (Amaziah) versus the priest as man of God (Amos).” The pro-diocesan faction rather clearly has bought into the diocese’s vision of the role of the parish priest.

In this vision of the priestly role, the priest is connected to the church and the gospel solely through the bishop of the diocese. This manifested itself in Accokeek in the use of an interim priest, appointed by the bishop and assisted by an aggressively revisionist deployment officer, to extend the period of vacancy, presumably in the hope that in the end the vestry would let the diocese choose a priest for the parish.

It manifested itself to me in the incomprehension on the face of Jane Dixon when I told her in an interview last year that I thought the rector’s understanding of his call is that it is primarily to his parish and only secondarily to a diocese, the implication being that he is first to represent Christ to his people and only secondarily to represent the person of the bishop. It is evident that her view is quite the opposite. (It is a vision, I am sorry to say, not always confined to the revisionist and corporatist dioceses of ECUSA.)

The effect of this understanding of the parish priest is that he is a sort of ecclesiastical middle-manager, who is supposed to keep quiet about his disagreements with diocesan policy, if any, and to encourage those in his charge to conform themselves to it—with oil or obfuscation or ostracism as the case demands. This understanding of the pastor’s call encourages him to see his main function as feeding the flock with what the institution gives him in press releases and position papers, rather than with what the Chief Shepherd provides in Word and Sacrament.

The model for ministry preferred by the Washington diocese and its faction in Accokeek is not John Vianney or John Wesley or John of Kronstadt or John Keble, but Amaziah of Bethel (cf. Amos 7:10ff). Amaziah is the priest of Bethel (not “the priest of the Lord at Bethel”).

He is the man who tells Amos to stop prophesying at the sanctuary at Bethel because “it is the king’s [not the Lord’s] sanctuary and it is a temple of the kingdom [not of the God of Israel].” In other words, the shrine at Bethel is very literally a national cathedral for the kingdom of Israel—it exists primarily to prop up and sanctify the existing social and political order in the northern kingdom.

The worship of the Lord is merely incidental to this primary purpose. This was the purpose of the shrines at Bethel and Dan from their inception under Jeroboam I: They were established to prevent the subjects of the Israelite kingdom from going to worship at the temple in Jerusalem and perhaps having their loyalty to the Davidic dynasty renewed.

These national shrines were also idolatrous from the beginning, since each contained one of two golden calves of whom the king had said, “Behold your gods, O Israel” (cf. 1 Kings 12:26ff). Therefore, the presence in this sanctuary of a man who calls the nation and its religious and political leadership to account for their nonconformity to the Lord’s standards is intolerable.

Functional Atheism

The underlying assumption of the pro-diocesan faction, Jane Dixon, and ECUSA, in general, is that there is no higher Shepherd than the bishop to whom they are to render account. The problem with this assumption is that it is essentially idolatrous: It takes something less than God and makes it the ordering principle of life. This is not Christianity but functional atheism, and, to state the obvious, there is no support for it in Scripture or in Reason or in the Tradition.

Functional atheism is the result of what Luther referred to as “professing Christ” rather than “confessing Christ.” It is manifest when people are not living in accordance with the faith whose tenets they outwardly affirm. It is evidence of an implicit adoption of the notion that there is no knowable definitive truth and that hence we must do the best we can with “our truth.”

Functional atheism doesn’t really work very well even in a secular state, as a sampling of its fruits—which are all around us—will quickly demonstrate. It results in the substitution of ethics for morals, of professionalism for vocation, and (ultimately) of self-will for godliness.

Its open appearance in the core of the Episcopal Church is no less shocking for its presence having been long suspected, and no less sad for its being the inevitable consequence of a chain of false choices stretching back to the Bishop James Pike affair and beyond. It appears virtually certain that the Episcopal Church’s epitaph has been written already, and it consists of what Whittier denominated as the saddest of words, “It might have been!”

Principles Of Arrogance

By The Very Rev. John Spencer

Anyone following events in The Episcopal Church (TEC) can observe certain unwavering principles of change that have been propagated, in one form or another, by those leading the charge of revolutionary innovation. I would summarize these principles as follows:

“The Bible may offer guidance in some areas of life, but any scriptures that vary from current sociological and political presuppositions should be ignored as relics culturally conditioned by a now antiquated world view. We are therefore no longer bound by the authority of holy scripture, the teaching of the apostles, or the practice of catholic Christendom over the centuries. Gender no longer matters.

Read the whole article at The Christian Challenge website.

Amazing Grace

The great social reformer and Abolitionist, William Wilberforce, MP, managed to defeat the slave trade in the British Empire due to his patience, endurance, diligence, hard work, and above all, his deep and firmly stated Christian faith. The great 18th century Anglican was reinforced by his association with John Newton and with John Wesley.

The movie Amazing Grace, starring Ioan Gruffudd, with Albert Finney, written by Steven Knight, and directed by Michael Apted, tells the story of Wilberforce's fight. His Christian faith is not hidden under a bushel, as may have been done were this a Hollywood movie, rather than a British film. The movie is now available on DVD. I recommend it, and I especially recommend it as a movie that both entertains and educates, an excellent choice to show to children and young students.

I do not write such endorsements of movies often. In fact, never. But, this is an exception because it is truly a worthy film. It is both educational and inspiring. If any of us think that we may lose heart in the battles of our time, especially the battle for the sanctity of life, it can only help us to remember the battle fought by William Wilberforce.

"Nobody gives a ..."

A good reason why we are Continuing Anglicans.

In a recent exchange, a conservative Episcopalian who considers Women's "Ordination" to be unimportant, made the following comment to a reader of The Continuum:

"There is, likewise, a reason there are no sites with comparable readership [to Stand Firm] that focus primarily on the matter of women's ordination: NOBODY GIVES A S... "
Greg Griffith of Stand Firm in Faith

(expletive, as in profanity, deleted by me.1)

This statement is worth thinking about. How can anyone fail to consider that the Episcopal Church lost more than a third of its entire membership in the late 1970s and early 1980s due wholly to this one innovation of women's "ordination?" And, why is it that all of us in the Continuing Churches have been dismissed by this high profile individual with the word "Nobody?" If "nobody gives a ...", then I take it that all of us are nobody.

Why do conservative Episcopalians imagine that the issue of women's "ordination" has not been a cause of major concern? The answer is that people enclose themselves in circles where mutual affirmation of a position, be it fact, theory or delusion, takes the place of proof and lends undue confidence. Among conservative Episcopalians it has become a cornerstone and sure foundation of faith that women's "ordination" does not really matter very much, even if it its opponents might be correct. It is, in their estimation, a secondary issue. What matters, in fact all that matters, is that the Anglican Communion is being torn apart by the issue of "Gay" bishops and Same Sex Blessing.

Yet, even among these conservative Episcopalians who cannot understand the importance of correcting the Women's "Ordination" heresy, one wonders why it is the issue of Same Sex that creates an emergency. With marriage having been relegated into a place of insignificance by no less than the examples of several bishops leaving their wives to marry other women, with liberalism about abortion, with essential doctrines such as the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, the Resurrection of Christ, the authority of scripture as the inspired Word of God as received and taught by the Church, all thrown on the ash heap and treated as merely optional, why do they finally wake up over this one issue? The homosex issue of the Episcopal Church is not the first issue in the heresy line. It has come at the end. And, those who have awakened only now are not in a position to demand credibility as spiritual, wise or orthodox people. They are not orthodox, even if comparably orthodox against someone even worse. They have tolerated every heresy that has led to this homosex crisis, and have exposed their own children to the evils and infidelity of the Episcopal Church for decades. Now, one prominent person of their number has spoken truly, but only about his own tolerant fellow conservative EUCUSAns, "nobody gives a ..." Yes, and that has been their problem all along. We are not impressed.

I quote myself from Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity:

" After all, what the homosexualists have been able to do is to base their arguments upon a foundation already laid for them. That foundation has included relaxation of the moral laws about sexual behavior. It has also included the confusion of sex roles ever since women were first “ordained” in the Episcopal Church. The conservatives have accepted these things, but hope now to credibly and effectively oppose the homosexualist cause. This cannot be done."

Besides, as our brother Ed Pacht has pointed out, this is not about orthodoxy, but about "the Yuk factor." They can live with denial of the major doctrines of the Faith, and with acceptance of immorality and notorious clergy. But, homosexuals are gross. On that they draw the line. Gee, how orthodox.

Also, how much of this is a revulsion to homosex, and how much is a revulsion to the solution it requires of many individuals, namely, celibacy? The worship of the creature over the Creator is where the path begins to that damned state of being "given over," as St. Paul warns in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Same Sex attraction that is acted upon is only the last step there. It begins with worshiping the creature of sex instead of the Creator. But, what causes conservative Episcopalians to get upset is this above all: That anyone could be a celibate.

1. Is there any site that focuses primarily on women's "ordination?" I think not. Nonetheless, both The Christian Challenge and New Directions, each of them respectively, have more readers than Mr. Griffith's site.

On being Catholic:

Jim Ryland, a good friend of mine, sent this very thoughtful piece, and I thought it appropriate to share it here.

As a professional church musician I have served in most of the major denominations, both Protestant and Catholic, over the 50 years of my career. I have directed music in Temples and Synagogues as well as some Orthodox parishes. In each of these venues it would have been a great disservice to both the congregation and our Divine Creator had I not been a fully participating worshipper and an integral part of each particular fellowship at Service time.
Within the Protestant denominations, no matter how elaborate and beautiful the services, there always seemed to be a pervading sense of being slightly unfulfilled when the postlude sounded. It began to dawn on me quite early that I was unconsciously comparing the liturgy and theology to my own rich Catholic heritage. The Service and the homily seemed a bit like reading one of those artless condensations of literary classics that college students review in order to pass examinations. The plot was there and so was the theme, but that miraculous element, that rich combination that made it a true work of art and a classic, was nowhere to be found.
In each of the denominations there were devout and good souls, even pious and dedicated clergy, but there was always something missing. The sometimes-varied views of Jesus often reflected accurately many facets of Our Savior but the collection of parts never seemed to equal the whole. He was revered as the great teacher, the Son of God, even the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, and on rare occasion, the true Sacrificial Lamb. In each case I felt a part of an “audience” that viewed Him from afar no matter how “personal” He was made to appear by the hymn texts and homilies.
The Lutherans were, for me, an enigma. Here was deep Catholic theology, liturgy, and worship but there was also a reserve… something held back as though admitting to true catholicity somehow sullied things. One could not tread too near Rome, Canterbury, or Byzantium lest some medieval or Eastern superstition should creep into the purified church.
It took many years for me to clearly analyze what I felt was missing. In truth, it took the full surrender to my true faith after ages of “smorgasbord Catholicism” to bring me to the full realization of the nature of the void:
The true gift of our Catholic faith lies in the realization that after countless ages of our Creator reaching down to touch man through the Patriarchs and Prophets, we have been given the means to reach back and to touch His face who made us. Christ is the conduit through which the second person of the Trinity has touched us, joined with us, and through Him we may, for the first time, reach back to touch the Divine. We no longer are simply the awestruck observers of his miraculous presence but through His Sacraments we travel to the time of Jesus and beyond to touch the hem of eternity. We are living participants in the Covenant. Through His Sacraments He transcends two thousand years to enter our daily lives with a potency as fresh and revealing as it was to His disciples centuries ago. In the Consecrated Eucharist His presence is as real as it was in that stable in Bethlehem and in Penance and Reconciliation His Crucifixion and Resurrection become an inseparable element forever cleansing and changing our souls.
This is the missing element of an “incomplete” work. The reformers, for all their good intentions aimed toward removing superstition, abuses, and “baggage” from the church, have also removed her heart and soul.

------------posted by ed pacht

San Joaquin Diocese leaves the ECUSA cult

Here is an item that may be of interest (and that certainly comes as no surprise). From Episcopal life Online as reported Dec. 8th

Delegates attending the 48th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin on Saturday, December 8, overwhelmingly voted to leave the Episcopal Church and to align with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone...Although the move makes San Joaquin the first diocese in the nation to complete a legislative process seeking separation from the Episcopal Church, [Bishop John David] Schofield predicted that more dioceses will follow. Flanked by Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan and Bolivia Bishop Frank Lyons from the Southern Cone province, Schofield told a gathering of reporters December 7 that the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003 was merely a "flashpoint" for those who had had "enough because of the liberal theology of the Episcopal Church."

"Those who want to remain Episcopalians but reject the biblical standards of morality, the ultimate authority of the Bible, and the biblical revelation of God to us in His Son the only savior of mankind, will in the end be left solely with a name and a bureaucratic structure," he said.

During an exchange of letters prior to convention, Jefferts Schori had advised Schofield that approval of the constitutional changes would "implicitly reject the Church's property and other canons."

Regarding the diocese's intention to affiliate with the Southern Cone, she said: "If you continue along this path…it will be necessary to ascertain whether you have in fact abandoned the communion of this church, and violated your own vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church."

...If Schofield is considered to have abandoned the communion of the church, he would have two months to recant his position. Failing to do so, the matter would be referred to the full House of Bishops. If the House were to concur, the Presiding Bishop would depose the bishops and declare the episcopates of those dioceses vacant. Those remaining in the Episcopal Church would be gathered to organize a new diocesan convention and elect a replacement Standing Committee, if necessary.

An assisting bishop would be appointed to provide episcopal ministry until a new diocesan bishop search process could be initiated and a new bishop elected and consecrated.

A lawsuit would be filed against the departed leadership and a representative sample of departing congregations if they attempted to retain Episcopal Church property.

Always the lawsuit. That's a very important part of the religion business in the cult known as The Episcopal Church. Notice that Bishop Schofield has not presented this move as a knee jerk reaction to the Homosexualist heresy. He sees that heresy in its context as the latest phase of a long fought battle, the newest chapter in the story of Revisionism. He is right, and more chapters lie ahead. No doubt the day will come when such heresies as Interspecies Union Blessing will the burning issue, and the conservative Episcopalians will insist that it is time to draw the line. By then Same Sex Blessing will be seen as an adiaphoron, and discussion of that issue will be banned on most threads at a new conservative and "orthodox" blog with a name like "Hold fast that which is good," or something like that.

Advent II

Romans 15:4-13

Luke 21:25-33

Taking a cue from the opening of today’s Epistle, and the last line from today’s Gospel, and of course the Collect, this Sunday has come to be called Bible Sunday. The Collect speaks of two things, one being the obligation of each one of us concerning the Holy Scriptures to “hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them;” the other being the work of the Holy Spirit as he uses those scriptures to grow within us patience and comfort that keeps us along the path to eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. And, if we think about the Epistle and Gospel for this day, we find that hope to be what our Prayer Book calls “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life.”

Recently, someone questioned me on why we refer to hope of the resurrection; after all, we hope for things that may never happen. I must disagree; we may wish for things that will never happen; but, hope cannot exist in such wishes. Or we may hope for things that might happen, but might not. But, to emphasize the meaning of hope as it relates to faith, we clarify our meaning with the words “sure and certain.” This comes from the Epistle to the Hebrews:

Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.
(Hebrews 6: 17-19)

It is clear that St. Paul never separated hope from faith, and never separated these from charity. These virtues grow together, and hope depends on faith. Hope believes, and love works; faith hopes and charity labors. What feeds us in our sure and certain hope is the word of God. Faith grows within us when hear that particular voice, the voice of God that we discern so clearly as he speaks to us now within the scriptures. They cannot become irrelevant. Written so long ago, when they are spoken or read God himself speaks in the present. Never are they worn out.

People have asked about the Holy Scriptures, when were they put together? One very unfortunate mark of our times is the quickness with which misinformation becomes “common knowledge.” Over the last few years some con artists have discovered that one way to make a lot of money in a hurry is to write a sensational, wholly misleading but shocking thesis about the Bible or Christian Faith in general, and then sell it directly to the public. The more revolutionary it is, the better. The more shocking, the more blasphemous, above all the more sensational, the easier it is to draw attention to it, and get it promoted on TV. We have seen these sensational works, all claiming to be a challenge to the Christian Faith, each make its rise and fall before burning out entirely. One very important point about that whole new industry is that none of these authors presents the shocking alleged discovery in the truly scientific arena of the academic world. If they did, they could not make the same amount of money overnight- or ever. If these shocking “discoveries” were put through the genuine process of scientific analysis they would die a quick death and be forgotten, and no one would get to make a killing. This con art was perfected by Elaine Pagels, herself someone taken seriously by the public, but never in the real world of professional academics, where her name is not respected at all. But, if she cries about the bad reputation she has in the academic world, she does so all the way to the bank.

As a result of the sensational, irresponsible and unprofessional, thoroughly unscientific misinformation that has been thrown in the face of the public for the last few years, several people think that the bishops of the Church assembled in Nicea and began cutting books out of the Bible. Most of the people who believe this also think the Emperor Constantine was running the Council of Nicea in 325.

A few facts help to clean up this utter fiction. Even though he was the Emperor, and even though the Christians of that time knew that the Edict of Milan in 313 AD had ended two and a half centuries of persecution (a virtual Holocaust that had made the earliest times of the Church a bloodbath), and even though they knew that he had the authority to return to the older laws that had made Christianity an offense punishable by death and revive them, he was not given the power to run the Council of Nicea. When the Council met and the Emperor presumed to address the bishops of the Church, they told him that he was not allowed to address the assembled bishops of Christ’s Church. Basically, they told Caesar, the Emperor Constantine to whom they owed so much, to sit down and shut up.

Now, about the Bible, the bishops at the Council of Nicea did not go about deciding which books were scripture, and which were not. All they did was to affirm in unity of mind that the books already perceived to be the Word of God were, indeed, just that. The Old Testament was not the issue at all, because it was declared to be the Word of God by no less a Person than the Living Word of God. These books had been received by the Jewish people for centuries, and were passed on to the Church with sure and certain authority. The process of recognizing these books was, by all accounts, the vox populi of the Jews. The Jewish people knew in what books to find that distinctive voice of God, and so it was that when Jesus Christ walked the earth and referred to the scriptures, in every synagogue of the Jews were those specific scrolls that formed the common library for all of them. We see in Luke that he read from the scroll of the prophets, reading from Isaiah and saying that scriptures spoke of none other but himself, Messiah and hope of the world.

In the earliest days of the Church this Old Testament formed the only Canon of scripture. But, by the early years of the second century we find that twenty-seven additional books were already received and quoted as the word of God; these twenty seven books forming an additional canon of scripture. These books are the New Testament. In some places a few questions were raised about II Peter, Jude and Revelation. But, over time the little bit of skepticism about them disappeared. In a few places some people thought that The Shepherd of Hermas might be part of the Canon of the scriptures of the Church. But, long before the Council of Nicea in 325, the Church had defined its Canon as the books we have now, adding to the Jewish scriptures it had inherited only the twenty-seven books we call the New Testament. Again, as it had been among Israel, when the scriptures were received and recognized vox populi, so it was with the Church of Christ and the canon of the New Testament. There were no books for the bishops to delete, but rather a Canon already established before any of them had been born.

Now, why was The Shepherd of Hermas not among the books of this Canon? Again, by that same vox populi that, by the principle of whether or not the people of God recognized the voice of God, this book had not been under serious consideration. Simply put, our fathers among the Jews and the early Christians simply did not hear the clear and familiar voice of God in any other books as they heard it in the scriptures. They knew the voice of God in the Law, the Prophets, the Wisdom Literature and the Psalms. And, they knew that same voice of God in the four Gospels, the Epistles and the prophecy of St. John the Revelator. They did not hear it as the voice of God in other books (not that most of them were ever aware of the many Gnostic writings given so much undue attention by today’s money making sensation mongers).

St. Paul tells us about the high regard we must give to the Old Testament in today’s Epistle:
“Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Think of that history of Israel, from the calling of Abraham to the coming of Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose again, the history of one people who were never allowed to give themselves over to sin and so be lost among the many pagan nations that served false gods. A people constantly purified by the prophet’s words, and many times by purging and suffering, given to captivity in Babylon but returned to their home after seventy years never to fall again into the worship of idols. They were a people so purified that among them was found one young virgin who echoed the faith and obedience of Abraham, and more perfectly than the ancient patriarch himself. Written aforetime was not only this history of the people through whom the Word, Jesus our Lord, would be incarnate, but the predictions made by the prophets of his life, his death on the cross, and his rising again. We all need to read Isaiah about the Suffering Servant by whose stripes we are healed, and who prolonged his days after dying, that he would live forever as the agent of the Lord’s will. We read of his suffering through the words of King David who foresaw the agonies of the Lord’s crucifixion, able to predict them in the first person as though suffering with him. We read also, in the words of this prophet king, of the joy of the resurrection of our Lord whose death was so brief a thing that he never saw corruption.

The Gospel today also gives us this hope, for the Lord himself assures us that his coming again will be our redemption, and that the fears and darkness of this age will disappear in the light of his glory. We are told to lift up our heads, not to look down and hang our heads. His coming, his rule over heaven and earth, the cleansing of this world from all evil, from death and suffering, and all such things that will be no more, are sure and certain. And, if instead of comfort this fills your heart with fear, then consider that fear with genuine care. It means that you must cast off the works of darkness and out on the armor of light, repent from all your sins and turn to the Lord that you may enter that blessed state of sure and certain hope, and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

Does the voice of God fill you with hope or with dread? I hope it does one or the other. For, anyone to be indifferent to these words is the only real danger. As our Lord said in his parable of Lazarus and the rich man, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”1 Our Lord told the Church of the Laodiceans, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”2 Indifference to the word of God is a danger beyond any other, closing the ears that they cannot hear. But, even if the word brings dread, this too leads to comfort and hope since the Holy Spirit uses what you hear to bring you to repentance, true repentance from the heart, and to faith in Jesus Christ. May God grant ears to hear, eyes to see and a heart to understand, that each one who has been lost may turn and be healed. 3

The Epistle today speaks of Christ’s ministry first to his own people of Israel, and his ministry through those people of Israel that believed in him and became his disciples as it extends to all nations.

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; In him shall the Gentiles trust.”

This brings to mind the words of Simeon, that he spoke when he held Jesus as an infant: “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” 4 This light and this glory has been known to the world because it is the purpose of God to shine the light of Christ into every dark place. Into the darkness of pagan dread and superstition, into the darkness of ignorance and foolishness, into the darkest places of sin and death. This glorious light of Christ shines into the darkest places where we try to hide from God due to our own sins; and if we respond to his mercy that same light of revelation brings comfort and hope, the sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life. The invitation is extended by his word: come, eat and be filled with the food and drink of eternal life. Come feed on the Living Bread that has come down from heaven, and with hearty and true faith to receive Christ through these humble means unto everlasting life with him in glory.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

1. Luke 16:31

2. Revelation 3:15, 16

3. From Isaiah 6:9

4. Luke 2:32

The only advocate of a limited WO position on staff

Matt Kennedy of Stand Firm in Faith has clarified the position of that blog on the subject of women's "ordination." In response to my report on the banning of Dr. William Tighe, Kennedy writes:

Dr. Tighe is indeed a brilliant man...an incredibly able defender of the classic position on WO. And yet we have many excellent defenders of the very same position advocated by Dr. Tighe, 3 of them are on the staff of Stand Firm, who do not regularly transgress the clearly stated policies of the website by inserting their brilliant and apt arguments on unrelated threads. I am, in fact, the only advocate of a limited WO position on staff and I am in the process of rethinking that at the moment. The assertion that having these opinions and arguing effectively for them will get you banned is simply a falsehood.

He had earlier described his "limited WO position" in these words: "I do not believe women can hold primary leadership in a parish or diocese."

Whereas we can be glad that most of the staff of SFIF rejects women's "ordination," it is instructive to understand the distinction between the truly orthodox position, and that put forward by Evangelicals based on the Wayne Grudem argument. The conclusions by Grudem are correct in themselves, but limited to the concepts of headship and natural sex roles. The thinking expressed in this paradigm separates women's "ordination" from two things: Sacramental theology and history.

The notion that Same Sex Blessings can be taken on and battled by people who accept women's "ordination," and that these should be treated, or even can be treated, as unrelated topics, shows a failure to grasp what is at issue, and what has, in fact, happened. For the theology I quote our brother Ed Pacht:

The Catholic Faith is not an amalgam of this belief and that belief and this other one, but rather a seamless tissue of interconnected parts, each affecting the way others are perceived and believed.

Thus a belief in the validity of female ordination impacts an increasing circle of other beliefs.
For instance: one may have a thoroughly orthodox-appearing belief in the Real and Objective Presence in the Sacrament, but one is asserting this real presence to be extant in situations where Traditional Catholics consider it impossible, i.e. when "consecrated" by a woman. If one believes this consecration to be objectively impossible, then one believes the hosts in the tabernacle that are so consecrated to be mere bread, and not an object of adoration, while the believer in such ordination falls to his knees before it.
Furthermore, no matter what one's view is of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, it does make a difference whether the celebrant is a valid priest or not. In the latter case, as surely as there is no presence, there is no sacrifice. To worship what is not God or to offer what is not an acceptable sacrifice are not laudable acts.

When there are female bishops, the problem compounds, since one has to do detective work to ascertain by whom a male priest was ordained BEFORE assisting at Mass or bowing before the tabernacle.

Does it make a difference in Eucharistic theology whether females are considered valid priests or not? You bet it does.

One's belief in the relation of gender to ordination also impinges upon one's anthropology and thus one's Christology. Either the sexes are interchangeable or they are quite distinct. If they are distinct, then maleness is an integral part of Christ's humanity, and He is seen in one way. If they are interchangeable, then maleness is a mere accident and He is seen differently. These are not irrelevancies in theology. One's view of them affects most theological matters one way or another.

The disavowal of gender roles, moreover, tends (as is amply illustrated in the changed outlook in ECUSA and ACoC) toward alterations in traditional moral theology and specifically in the view and practice of marriage.

Sorry, _____, but, simply on the basis of the one issue of female ordination, I indeed do, and must, look at your entire theological position with a good deal of reservation, even suspicion, as I have to see this one view as having warped your position into a something that is no longer Catholic...

About history I will quote myself:

The fact is, once the "ordination" of women was accepted, the movement to bless same sex unions was inevitable. The arguments for Homosexualism are not merely similar to the arguments for women's "ordination." Rather, they are the exact same arguments. The blessing of same sex unions, practiced now throughout the heretical but official Canterbury Communion, is performed as a church rite by sincerely lusting couples under the direction of clergypersons of both sexes and all genders, to be as close to the semblance of marriage as the Law of each state, province or nation makes possible. In short, it imitates the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and does so on the newly understood basis that the sex of a person has no significance in a sacrament. If Shirley and Maggie can be "ordained" they can also be married, and so can Adam and Steve...Perhaps you only meant to let women be priests, but not to let the premise take its own logical course to the final end. However, the premise itself is subject to the gravity of logic, and must keep rolling until you are "blessing" Adam and Steve in the imitation sacrament of Unholy Unmatrimony. Those who want to argue that this was not inevitable have two problems facing them: First, we predicted this would happen, and second, it has.

Treating these two heresies as separate and unrelated is the problem. This is what Dr. Tighe tried to explain to them.

St. Nicholas (December 6th)

Apolytikion of Saint Nicholas

As a canon of faith and an icon (image) of meekness,
(and) of self-control (abstinence) a teacher,
the truth of your deeds has shown you to your flock;
wherefore you acquired through humility the high things (greatness),
through poverty riches
Father hierarch Nicholas,
intercede with Christ the God
that our souls may be saved.

The truth of your deeds has shown you
to your flock as a canon of the faith,
an example of virtue, and a teacher of temperance.
Wherefore you did by humility acquire greatness
and by poverty riches.
Father and Bishop Nicholas,
intercede with Christ our God
that our souls may be saved.

Translation by the late Fr. Leonidis Contos

Kasper the unfriendly Cardinal?

From the Catholic Herald (UK):

One of the Vatican’s most senior cardinals has dismissed the idea that a breakaway group of Anglicans might be received into the Catholic Church en masse – despite Benedict XVI’s personal support for such a move. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, told The Catholic Herald: “It’s not our policy to bring that many Anglicans to Rome.” The cardinal’s comments refer to the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a rebel group which claims to represent 400,000 people. Its bishops sent a letter to Rome last month requesting “full, corporate and sacramental union”.

But the bishops did not send their letter to Cardinal Kasper. Instead they addressed it to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), where, it is understood, they expected a warmer reception.

It has been claimed that 60 Anglican parishes have joined the rebel group since their request became public. Vatican insiders say that Benedict XVI is scrutinising the matter very closely and believes that the TAC is setting out a path that other Anglicans will follow.

Stand Wobbly

Dr. William J. Tighe banned from Stand Firm

History Professor, faithful Byzantine Catholic, and no slouch in theology, my fellow Contributing Editor of Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity, Dr.William Tighe, has been banned from commenting on the blog, Stand Firm. Dr. Tighe received no warning, and only found out when attempting to post a comment.

I asked Greg Griffith, one of the people in charge of that blog, if he denied this report. His answer to me contained the following:

"[Dr. Tighe] was not banned for his position on WO [women's ordination]. He was banned because he insisted on bringing up the topic on every thread he commented on. It was a nuisance and a distraction, and a violation of our comment policy, which has been clearly stated for over a year and a half by now, and which is linked at the bottom of every page on our site...We don't care what anyone's position on WO is, but we do insist that no one bang that drum on every thread they choose to participate in. Whether it's WO, or continuing churches, or the infield fly rule...Dr. Tighe has for months been one of our most obnoxious guests, and has been given more leeway than perhaps anyone. It was clear that either he never understood his status as a guest, or he didn't value it. So be it - he is not our problem any more."

(The words, "and has been given more leeway than perhaps anyone" is quite revealing under these circumstances.)

One of our readers, who comments frequently, Fr. Laurence Wells, said this about Greg Griffith's explanation:

"It is shocking to learn that Dr Tighe has been banned from commenting on the blog Standfirm, for the purported reason that he always 'injects' the issue of WO into all threads. Even a cursory survey of the threads which he participates in shows that to be a falsehood of the foulest sort, an egregious violation of 9th commandment."

It is undeniable that William J. Tighe is every bit as obnoxious as Griffith has said. Nothing is more obnoxious than a man whose arguments are too powerful to refute, whose facts are voluminous and organized, and whose intellectual faculties out gun the opposition. Nonetheless, even such a pain in the neck as Bill Tighe deserves some sort of courtesy, like a warning or simple notification. Perhaps the warning could have said: "Dr. Tighe: unless your arguments become weak enough for us to handle, we will ban you."

Frankly, if Dr. Tighe is motivated to comment when the subject of Women's "Ordination" is relevant, it is because he sees the connection. That connection is obvious to those of us who cannot join with those conservative Episcopalians and other Cantuarians who fail to understand the connection between W "O" and their one and only issue, Homosexialism. That link, that is both historical and theological, about which I have written more than once, is painfully obvious to us, since the inevitable path from W "O" to Same Sex Blessing was anticipated years before it was seriously entertained in the Episcopal Church. This is why the spectacle of conservative Canterbury Anglicans who tell themselves and each other that they are orthodox, and standing firm in the Faith, cannot be taken seriously by people who notice that their position is hopelessly compromised due to their acceptance of a major revision. As I have stated before, the apologists for Same Sex Blessing (and the heresy of Homosexualism in general) needed only to dust off and use the very arguments provided for them by the proponents of Women's "Ordination." The idea that anyone can do this, and still claim to "stand firm," demonstrates the power of the will to overcome reason.

God and man at GW

From today's Washington Times:

Dinesh D'Souza has tackled some tough topics over the years — political correctness, racism, Islamic terrorism — but his latest challenge may be the toughest of all: Defending the Christian faith at a time when what he calls "the New Atheism" is making increasing inroads in American culture.

"A generation ago, the poster child for atheism was Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who was not a person with mainstream appeal," said Mr. D'Souza. "But the New Atheists are suave. They have good academic credentials."

Since publishing his latest book, "What's So Great About Christianity?" six weeks ago, Mr. D'Souza has debated two of the most prominent proponents of a God-free understanding of the universe, Christopher Hitchens (author of "God Is Not Great") and Daniel Dennett (author of "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon").

He will take on a third atheist antagonist tonight at George Washington University, when he debates Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine and author of "Why Darwin Matters."

You may read the rest here.