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ACNA: Habemus Papam
Latrobe, Pennsylvania – The College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America has elected its next archbishop, the Rt. Rev. Steve Wood, bishop of the Diocese of the Carolinas. The College met in conclave in the crypt of St. Vincent’s Basilica at St. Vincent’s College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania from Thursday, June 20 through Saturday, June 22, 2024.
Bishop Wood will serve as the third archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America which was founded in 2009 and now has over 128,000 members in over 1,000 congregations across Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
He’s got his work cut out for him. But first he needs to throw a party at Page’s Okra Grill.
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Jürgen Moltmann RIP
Announced in the Church Times:
THE German theologian Professor Jürgen Moltmann, who was widely read in English translation, died on Monday, aged 98.
A member of the Evangelical Church in Germany, he was Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology in the University of Tübingen. But his serious theological reading first began in the UK, to which he was brought as a prisoner-of-war at the end of the Second World War.
As is my custom, I don’t say things about the dead I wouldn’t say while they were living. This is my assessment of the man from my post My “Journey” with Jürgen Moltmann:
One place where Moltmann should read his own stuff is the issue of theodicy. On the one hand, he sighs that the terrible wars of the last century have put the issue of theodicy out of reach. That’s been a common sentiment of Europeans who went through these wars; it has been a big push in the decline of Christianity in Europe. In the 1980’s my mother had an English S.O. who became an atheist because of his experience in World War II; the effect was different over here. On the other hand, Moltmann points out that modern man is now the master of his own destiny. Then why did he allow these wars to happen? Why were humans out to lunch on this? This may not answer the theodicy issue to Moltmann’s satisfaction, but it should (usually doesn’t) give humanists pause as to the superiority of their idea…
Overall, I found going through his talks an education. It made me look at liberal theology in a different way, if not in a more favourable one. As far as Göttingen people are concerned, I’ll stick with the list I gave at the start and leave Moltmann to the liberal seminary academics.
I’m glad that Giles Fraser “closed the loop” on the theodicy issue the way he did; we’d all be better off if that were more frequent.
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Formulating Orthodoxy: The Centrality of Canon Law for Common Prayer and Doctrine–The North American Anglican
There are a couple of things that the Rev. Andrew Brashier’s verbiose treatment of the subject left out.
The first concerns the whole “Patristic revival” that brought things such as the Apostolic Canons back into view. He’s right that it was a background for both the Novus Ordo Missae and that dreadful 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Traditionalists of all stripes will be unenthusiastic about such a reminiscence, and those traditionalists are key to the second point. It’s worth noting that another canon that came back into view was that of the Mass, as I noted in my series on the subject.
The second point is simple: the canons aren’t worth much unless the bishops are prepared to enforce them, especially on points of “faith and morals” to use the Catholic expression. I’ll repeat my piece on James Pike; when the Episcopal Church lost its nerve on disciplining him, the end of real Christianity in that venerable institution had its beginning:
In holding his lecture in West Palm Beach, Pike was invading what was for him “enemy territory.” In an article in the July 2006 issue of Chronicles magazine, author Tom Landess reminded us of the following:
In 1966, a group led by Henry I. Louttit, bishop of the Central Archdeanery of South Florida, demanded that Pike be tried for heresy.
John Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, met with Louttit and a small delegation in New York and told them he had polled key figures in the mass media, who had declared unanimously that a heresy trial would severely, disastrously damage the Church’s image.
Most of the bishops agreed. The Bishop of New York expressed the feelings of the majority: “Of all the methods of dealing with Bishop Pike’s views, the very worst is surely a heresy trial! Whatever the result, the good name of the church will be greatly injured.”
Hines asked Louttit and his cohorts to allow an ad hoc committee to address the problem more informally, less visibly. Louttit reluctantly agreed. Members of the committee met, engaged in a great deal of hand-wringing, and came back with a report that said in part:
It is the opinion that this proposed trial would not solve the problem presented to the church by this minister, but in fact would be detrimental to the church’s mission and witness…This heresy trial would be widely viewed as a “throw back” to centuries when the law in church and state sought to repress and penalize unacceptable opinions…it would spread abroad a “repressive image” of the church and suggest to many that we were more concerned with traditional propositions about God than with the faith as the response of the whole man to God.
At Wheeling, West Virginia, the House of Bishops adopted this statement by an overwhelming vote, though they also agreed to “censure” Bishop Pike – a small, dry bone tossed to Christian orthodoxy. In the above passage, two phrases — “acceptable opinions” and “repressive image” – revealed what was really going on.
Henry Louttit was a frightful bore from the pulpit, but he was right: it was heresy, and frankly it still is. People such as Pike detonated the jerk to the left that caused the Episcopal Church to lose a third of its membership in the 1970’s. Once again the Pharaohs on the left are making their move and once again God’s children are forced into exodus. But now there is a Promised Land.
But it will only be a promised land if it is lead by the likes of Moses and Joshua, and we’ll find out next week if the ACNA will put such people at the helm.
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Facing Reality on Christian Colleges and the Liberal Arts Education
The news that Cornerstone University in Michigan is ending all humanities and arts programs (with booting of professors following) has shaken many in the Christian collegiate community. It’s also something that comes close to home: this fall, Lord willing, I’ll start teaching engineering at Lee University, which has been a liberal arts college for a long time but is itself starting an engineering program, having done the same with a nursing program earlier. Having been taken to task more than once regarding my opinions on engineering programs (that’s an ablative absolute for those of you who missed it,) I feel that it’s time for a reality check on this whole subject, because Cornerstone (and Lee for that matter) are not the only Christian colleges adding what their detractors refer to as “vocational training.”
As part of this I need to make a disclosure: I know Cornerstone’s president, Gerson Moreno-Riaño, from my association with Regent University, where he was Vice-President before coming to Cornerstone. About ten years ago my PhD program experienced a funding crisis which led some of us (especially the foreign students) to wonder if we would end up “on the street.” Lacking guidance from either our own institution or from searching on the internet, I turned to my contacts at Regent (as I mentioned in my dissertation) of which Moreno-Riaño was one. Their response was simple: if our PhD program was ended without getting the students to graduation, transfer out or abandonment of their degree pursuit, our institution would experience the “Wrath of SACS” (its and Regent’s chief accreditation agency.) It wasn’t easy but we got through, and Moreno-Riaño’s (and others’) advice was very helpful.
With that out of the way, I’d like to lay out in as simple terms as possible why I think liberal arts education–Christian and otherwise–is in trouble:
- Higher education is expensive. There is a serious aversion in the liberal arts community about evaluating one’s education in terms of the revenue the subsequent career will generate, but barring a general amnesty from Joe Biden those loans have to be paid back somehow. (And, thanks to some stupid changes in our law, you can’t discharge them in bankruptcy.) Most of that is due to administrative bloat, some of which comes from compliance with the maze of Federal and state regulations, but some is just the way things are done these days, and it’s not good.
- The idea that one needs to go to college to obtain any benefit from such an education is simply not right. Exposure to the arts and history (to say nothing of foreign languages, living or dead) is something that must be started much sooner; college is too late. But colleges have been expected to compensate for the manifest deficiencies of our primary and (especially) secondary educational system, which has diluted the content of the undergraduate degree. Our schools (and not just the public ones) have contented themselves with developing conformity to the “system” in the students and not the critical thinking skills they really need.
- Liberal arts education has been politicised to the point that it’s hard to characterise it as “liberal” in any sense of the word. That in many ways is the consequence of our obsession with instilling conformity with a system; it’s encouraged the development of a power dynamic in our academics. It’s also the consequence of Americans’ investing too much in the ability of our institutions of higher learning to mould character, when that too needs to start earlier.
- Liberal arts advocates downplay the ability for scientific and technical pursuits to develop thinking skills. Nowhere does that prejudice find refutation in reality than with mathematics. One of the last courses I took for my PhD was Advanced Linear Algebra. (It was from that course that this post was inspired.) Our professor taught it from a strict “theorem and proof” standpoint, not one congenial to his engineering students. It was his idea that mathematics should be used to teach logical thinking, and he certainly carried through with it. Another math professor noted that computer programming was a form of mathematical proof; you need to know how to thing logically to be a good programmer, although the road to that, for me, had a few “bumps.”
And there are practical realities to consider. American universities are bracing for a demographic cliff which started with the economic crash of 2008 and from which we have never recovered. Moreover students at more than Christian institutions are shifting towards career choices (and the education to go with them) that generate enough revenue to provide for oneself and a family. But it’s more than hard necessity: why must Christian students and institutions shut themselves off from scientific and technological pursuits in a world where both are an integral part of life? Many of the stupid decisions we see in our society stem from an elite with little scientific or technical training.
As far as Moreno-Riaño’s program for Cornerstone is concerned, the execution strikes me as too drastic. The article notes that other institutions will doubtless take a more gradual approach, but as just noted there are real forces behind such transitions. As also noted Moreno-Riaño’s plan requires being able to find adjuncts to “stand in the gap,” which isn’t as straightforward in a place like Grand Rapids as one might think. And building a faculty in engineering is certainly going to induce “sticker shock” in Christian institutions; it may be a necessary transition, but it won’t be an easy one.
When Jack K. Williams became President of Texas A&M University in 1970, he made the following statement:
I believe that during the years ahead we will be witness to a geometric rise in the development and adoption of innovative techniques and programs. In matters large and small, the atmosphere of education is heavy with the smell of change. For some of us this is a heady perfume; for others it is the pungent odour of brimstone. Either we sail the strange sea, benefited by whatever navigational experience we have and can command, or we will become passengers on educational vessels whose rudders are managed by others…*
More than a half century later quite a few in Christian education are smelling brimstone. It’s time to stop and embrace the expansion of Christian institutions into new territory unless, of course, you don’t mind if they end up with no territory at all.
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It’s That Time Again: Reflections on the 2024 Church of God General Council Agenda
It really is that time again: the Church of God is looking at another General Council and General Assembly in Indianapolis, IN. The agenda itself is here and I’ll be doing a “blow by blow” commentary on same.
Before all of that let’s start with a cautionary note: the most significant part of the Council’s work is to elect our “general officials.” This year there are three open positions (out of five) on the Executive Committee due to term limits. The “post-Constitutional” era we’re in now highlights the fact that we can pass all of the resolutions we want, but unless we have leaders with integrity and insight, we won’t get the result that we need and miss God’s plan for his church.
So let’s get to it:
Global Harvest
This is good; however, it’s worth noting that the model of missionaries coming only from the U.S. is long in the past. Today missions is a) finding people called from wherever they come from and b) sending them to where God has called them to go. I find that Americans don’t quite get that, but we’ve been here at least since the days of Miguel Alvarez, Gordon Robertson and the Asian Centre for Missions, and this will accelerate as we move forward.
Ministry of Evangelism
The Presiding Bishop teed up this discussion earlier this year and I commented on it in my post My Response to “Embracing the Evangelism Opportunity as a General Department…..Again! Let’s Talk About It – Part One.” This item would basically bring back the old department of Evangelism and Home Missions as a restructured Ministry of USA Missions, with elected leadership and a more active board. My comments re the need to include discipleship in this department’s agenda stand.
As an example of this, consider the children’s Bible video series Superbook. It’s certainly evangelistic (it includes the salvation prayer with every video) but it’s also a discipleship tool in that it shows children how to live as Christians. That kind of thing is what we’re going to have to do in cultures—including our own—where the “prediscipleship” of the culture is lacking or absent altogether. Without this our evangelistic efforts will be trapped in a cycle of “blow in/blow up/blow out” without results that stick in this life and the life to come.
One observation: The director and assistant director are limited to one four-year term. Bro. Hill said that he didn’t want this position to become of those going off of the Executive Committee. With the single term, there’s a good chance that the position will become just that.
State Evangelism and Missions Director
I have a couple of questions:
- Why are lay people excluded from this Board? They can serve at the International level (I’m on the Division of Care Board,) why not the state level? Although before the reorganisation the Evangelism Boards (and I’m glad to see them coming back) had oversight over lay ministries at the state level, some states had a state lay board. That was a hit or miss proposition depending upon the state Administrative Bishop. It would be easier to have lay people at the state level on the main board rather than to have two.
- How much have we considered the role of the laity in evangelism and discipleship? Do our ministers really believe that they can do the job by themselves? The New Testament doesn’t support such a concept and neither does experience. Evangelism training for the laity needs to be a part of this effort. This kind of training is both good for outreach and good for those trained, as you cannot share the Gospel unless you know the Gospel.
Biblical Sexuality
This is of a piece with my discussion on “Lee University Doctrinal Integrity and Teaching Fidelity,” where I discuss the issue in detail. I think it’s unfortunate that we have to have a resolution like this but we have to play the cards we’re dealt.
Female Ministers on Trial Boards
This is an attempt to involve women on ministerial trial boards (especially those which involve moral failure) without dealing with the issue of women not being able to be ordained bishops. It’s a good step but we need to come to a happier resolution on this subject.
Generational Harvest
This issue has been something of an obsession with our church leadership, both in terms of the people brought into the church and our ministers. As someone who has taught college students for over twenty years, the most important thing for our people to do (along with the evangelism training mentioned above) is to be real in their Christian walk.
Doctrinal Fidelity
In 2008 we tried to pass a resolution to require our ministers to explicitly agree with the Church of God Declaration of Faith. The effort failed; unless there’s been a major shift of opinion amongst our ministers on this topic, unless we address two issues it will (and should) fail again:
- Forcing such agreement would basically shut off debate on the Declaration of Faith and the other statements of faith and practice, which is great until you consider these were all passed at a General Assembly in the past and should be amendable by another one in the future. Some provision needs to be made on disagreement with these statements in the context of changing these in a formal way at the General Assembly.
- Keeping a resolution of this kind from being used as a weapon by one minister against another in order to settle personal scores. Whether that’s successful depends upon the integrity of our ministerial trial system more than the resolution itself, although some mention of that problem would be helpful.
Some of the resolution involves our educational institutions, and I dealt with that in my discussion on “Lee University Doctrinal Integrity and Teaching Fidelity,”
Resolutions re State Overseers and Ordained Bishops
These clear up some technical matters and there is no problem with them.
Responsible Use of Social Media/Digital Platforms
In 2012 a resolution of this kind was put before the Council and failed. It was in the wake of the “Missional Revolt” that led to the cut in the “tithe on tithe” and the reorganisation of the church. I said at the time I felt that the purpose of the resolution was to prevent a rerun of the Missional Revolt. My experience in the Anglican/Episcopal world told me that what has happened in that world—which resulted in the formation of the ACNA—would have never succeeded on the scale it did without the internet and social media, which is basically what happened to the Continuing Churches in the 1970’s. In a church which has the deficient transparency and redress of grievances that ours does, social media is frequently the only way those concerns can come out, although I have reservations about how most of our dissenting social media gets that job done.
Although the present resolution is more carefully crafted, I still don’t like it. The way we conduct ourselves on social media is an extension of how we conduct ourselves face to face and on “legacy” media. We badly need to learn how to discuss issues in a constructive manner, but social media isn’t the cause of that problem. The Scriptures and other governing rules should be enough on social media and elsewhere.
Biblical Worldview
This is something we need to have, although a lot of what passes as a “Biblical worldview” in Protestant churches isn’t up to the status of a worldview. Some of that relates to the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, and there’s a resolution dealing with that, too (see below.)
Priesthood of All Believers
This is one of those things which people like to say more than they like to implement, which speaks to the role of the laity I discussed earlier.
Ordinances of the Church (Communion)
This particular topic came up in the last General Council. It was sent back for reconsideration because, as written then, it implied that the proposed change was the actual position of the original General Assembly in 1906, which was not necessarily the case. This addresses that problem, but in the meanwhile two other problems have arisen that need consideration:
- We need a serious “tightening up” of our whole approach to the Holy Communion, something I discussed in my post About Those “Loosey-Goosey” Communion Theologies, Episcopal and Otherwise. At this point our Communion practice is little better than that of some left-wing ministers of that “gay-friendly church.”
- Although the Holy Communion (along with Baptism and Foot Washing) were classified as ordinances at the start, that isn’t carried through in our subsequent statements. We need to figure out whether we consider them as mere ordinances or ascribe a more sacramental nature to them.
Sexual Abuse of a Child/Sexual Exploitation of a Minor
I have no problem with the revocation of ministerial credentials in this case. This extends the penalty to being cast out of the Church of God altogether. My guess is that, for one or more situations, it was too easy for a minister with revoked credentials to go join a church and continue the nasty activities. The practice of permanent exclusion for serious sin has precedent going back to subapostolic times and has sanction in the New Testament; it’s drastic but in some situations it’s necessary.
While on the subject, as a practical matter the Church of God’s first response to problems like this is simple: call the cops. All things considered, that’s the best approach. If the state changes its opinion on paedophilia (and that’s a real possibility) we may be in an entirely new situation, as we are with other matters we thought were “settled” in our society.
Ministerial Reporting
This is a technical measure that should be passed.
Statement on Racism
Every time I link to my 2015 post What Working for the Church of God Taught me About Race, the response is almost always the same: crickets. The problem in the Church of God isn’t racism but ethnocentrism, and until we get past that we’ll never be the church God wants us to be. We only need to look at the example of the Assemblies of God to see what happens when we transcend the limits of ethnocentrism. That also applies to some of our more progressive voices, as I pointed out during the “Think Younger” movement.
Institute of Leadership Development
Personally I’m getting tired of the American obsession with leadership and leadership development. The more we seem to harp on this subject the poorer the quality of leadership we seem to get, and I’m speaking of our secular world. Leonard Sweet told me that what we need more than this is to teach followership; I’m inclined that this is right and that, if we started with this, those who come up in the system would be better leaders when their time came.
Statement of the Old Testament
There isn’t much in Evangelical Christianity that indicates the retrograde state of thinking than the need for a statement like this. From its start the Church of God, in concord with virtually every other Christian church, has regarded the New Testament as the rule of faith and practice. A century or more of levelling hermeneutic has opened the door for turning Christianity into a form of synthetic Judaism, and that’s not what Our Lord had in mind. The whole meaning of a Biblical worldview (discussed earlier) hangs on how we understand the relationship between the testaments, so this is an important issue.
These then are my thoughts on the 2024 Church of God General Council Agenda; I hope they have proven helpful.
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My Thoughts on “Lee University Doctrinal Integrity and Teaching Fidelity.”
Last month the Executive Council of the Church of God, in partnership with Lee University, completed the document referenced above. You can get the full details of this here. My purpose here is not to rehash the entire process (which started last September) but to comment on its results. The challenges from the culture that both the Church of God and Lee University face are serious ones; it’s best to tackle them now than to wait until it is too late.
My personal interest in this topic is heightened because, as I announced on another site, starting this Fall I am teaching engineering at Lee University. Lee has traditionally been a liberal arts college but it is venturing more towards professional education, first with its nursing school and now with its engineering program. I have contended for a long time that our educational system needs to move more in a hard science direction (and one that will not, in my opinion, deflect it from a faith mission.) This is my chance to make a contribution to that in a Christian school. My entry–and this joint effort–comes with the background of the dispute between one of our prominent ministers and a Lee faculty member about the latter receiving the Holy Communion at his wife’s Episcopal parish. So the urgency of this topic is compounded.
All that said, let us start with this:
Within the context of rapidly shifting societal norms and religious beliefs, and in response to concerns expressed within the Church of God, the International Executive Council determined to review the instructional practices at Lee University. The review process included a series of meetings involving members of the Executive Council and leaders from Lee University.
It’s difficult to overstate the role that Lee has in the Church of God. My years of working in the International Offices (and being married to a Lee graduate) have resulted in my hearing “I went to Lee with him/her” many times. A leftward lurch would be a disaster for not only Lee but the church in general, especially in a church which struggles more than most with resolving differences of opinion and thinking difficult issues through.
From here I’d like to go through the actions which the Lee board approved and sent to the Executive Council:
Lee University will develop a certification course for its faculty including an orientation to the history, culture, doctrines, and practical commitments of the Church of God; and that this certification be required of all faculty engaged in teaching theology, church doctrine, ecclesiology, and/or practical theology at Lee University.
It’s worth noting that our ministers have opposed one or more of their number losing his or her credentials because of lack of fidelity to the Declaration of Faith. How this will play out with the Lee faculty will be interesting. The tricky part of such a certification is whether it identifies people who really have problems with the Declaration of Faith without doing so to those who agree with it but don’t believe and teach “the way we’ve always done it.” I will also remind people that just because you’re a product of the culture doesn’t mean you are faithful to the doctrine.
The Lee University Board of Directors reaffirm its existing policy requiring all faculty members to abide by the existing contractual and policy commitments to the lifestyle and doctrinal commitments of the Church of God as they relate to personal conduct, scholarship, and teaching.
The current application for employment states verbatim that “Faculty members at Lee University agree in their contracts not to propagate religious, teach or publish anything contrary to the Declaration of Faith.” The Faculty Handbook is explicit in the type of conduct which Lee expects its faculty to exhibit, and that includes unacceptable opposite-sex conduct in addition to same-sex conduct.
Lee University will explore the establishment of a required Christian Discipleship class, offered at the 100 level, as an addition to the religion core of Lee University.
Personally I’d look at the whole religion core to make sure that discipleship is integral to it. I’ve discussed this issue before, but face it, Jesus told us to go make disciples.
In collaboration with the Church of God Division of Education, Lee University will explore a means to integrate ministry credentialing in the Church of God within the ministry degree programs of the Lee University School of Theology and Ministry.
It makes sense that the Division of Education, which oversees the education of our ministers, would have input at this stage.
Lee University Board of Directors adopts the following policy changes related to the faculty of the School of Theology and Ministry (STM):
a. Given their central role in training future ministers consistent with the doctrines and teachings of the Church of God, faculty members in the School of Theology and Ministry may not be a member of, regularly attend, or regularly perform ministerial functions at churches or other religious organizations with doctrines, beliefs, positions, or other ministry practices in conflict with the Statement of Beliefs on Human Sexuality.
b. Codify the existing STM practice of hiring only Pentecostal scholars on its faculty and operating policy of the Board of Directors, including hiring preference for Church of God scholars. Exceptions to this policy would require board approval.
c. Require a written response from all faculty candidates reflecting their views on the doctrinal commitments of the Church of God and the Lee University Statement of Beliefs on Human Sexuality and Gender.
d. Require at least one scholarly writing per year from all ranked faculty members on an article of the Church of God Declaration of Faith, Doctrinal Commitments or Practical Commitments.
e. Provide incentives to faculty members who are credentialed ministers with the Church of God.
f. Establish a faculty hiring advisory committee, comprised of three Ordained Bishops of the Church of God (a local pastor, an administrator from the Church of God Division of Education, and a sitting member of the Executive Council), to review the applications and/or interview new faculty members and supply an assessment of the candidates to the University President for consideration by the Board of Directors.
Lee already requires two things from faculty applicants: a) a Personal Faith Narrative, and b) a Personal Faith Statement on the Integration of Faith and Learning. (I’ll be glad to post mine if you’re interested.) My guess is that (c) will be implemented with an additional statement to those. It will be interesting to see how the science and engineering faculty do on (d). I think that (e) needs to be expanded to include lay people, especially in those fields where our ministers are scarce. Concerning (f), Lee may want to have a tiered review process for part-time and full-time faculty.
The Lee University Board of Directors shall establish a subcommittee to review all new faculty hires prior to the University President presenting candidates for consideration for approval by the board.
I think that this needs to be integrated with (f) on the previous point to reduce duplicate effort.
Lee University amends its moonlighting policy to prohibit employees and faculty members from engaging in outside employment or serving in a ministerial staff position, whether or not for compensation, at churches or other religious organizations that have doctrines, beliefs, positions, or other ministry practices in conflict with the Statement of Beliefs on Human Sexuality.
Lee’s moonlighting policy, even for part-time faculty, is more restrictive than what I have been used to at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. OTOH UTC requires an annual Conflict of Interest report out of its faculty, something that Lee might want to consider.
It’s a sign of the times that the issue of human sexuality is the “wedge” issue that our opponents–both inside and outside of the church–have picked. That’s a change from the doctrinal and theological ones that dominated the 1960’s and 1970’s. That’s why this issue is central to this narrative and to the future course of Lee and the Church of God. The unaddressed issue is the role of the federal government in all of this, but perhaps I presaged this in my 2007 piece Waiting for the Cops to Show Up.
Overall I think this is a step in the right direction. The method of implementation is crucial; what we need is a transparent process with a minimum of bureaucratic inefficiency. The stakes are too high for this process and those like it to fail.
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The ACNA is Really at a Crossroads
This excellent piece by the Ven. Canon Justin Murff lays it out:
This June, the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America will meet at St. Vincents College in Latrobe, PA from June 20 – June 23 to hold a Conclave to elect the next Archbishop of the ACNA. Many in the ACNA feel that the election of the next Archbishop will determine the future of the entire church.
Make no mistake, there are several elephants in the room that whoever the bishops elect, the next archbishop will require a unique set of skills and enduring fortitude to meet the challenges head on if the ACNA is to survive and meaningfully join the emerging re-formed global Anglican community.
I said towards the beginning of the adventure that is the ACNA had two major issues that it needed to resolve: the Anglo-Catholic divide and WO. Murff doesn’t mention the former, probably because the really serious amongst them have an alternative in the Continuing Churches, which themselves are making progress towards unity. About WO, however, Murff is right that it is still a key issue:
The current policy is seen by many as simply kicking the can down the road. But the next Archbishop will need to lead the church towards a globally acceptable position that honors the gifting and ministry calling of Women (especially in the diaconate) yet respects and reserves the historic and biblically faithful position of the episcopacy and presbytery.
There are two keys to resolving this issue. The opponents of WO need to give up the RCC-based concept of authority. The supporters need to give up grievance and rights driven feminism (which has been seriously complicated of late by the transgender movement.) I can’t see either of these wanted to part with their respective security blankets; tbh I’m not optimistic that this is going to be resolved any time soon without schism.
But now to some other issues:
Ultimately, the ACNA needs a dedicated house of training for our Deacons and Priests. Part of the current dilemma is that the current slate of schools that provide Anglican tracks for our clergy still wrestle with their own identity (Episcopal, Lutheran, Baptist, High church, Low Church, Deconstructed Evangelical, etc). It is amazing that a denomination with more than 1,200 parishes has no institution of higher learning of its own. The time has come to chart a way forward to remedy that.
Starting any kind of educational institution (and keeping it on course) is problematic these days, both financially and doctrinally. I discussed this from a prep school standpoint in my post Maybe an Anglican Boarding School Isn’t Such a Good Idea After All. Obviously a seminary and a prep school are different “kettles of fish” (as my old Mainer prep school physics teacher would say) but we only need to look around at the number of colleges and universities closing to see what a daunting task this really would be. Perhaps the ACNA should consider either a) picking up a closing school to start the effort or b) going outside of the U.S., where it could avoid the accreditation system’s tendency to grind down conservative institutions.
Having a more homogeneous clergy would go a long way to address the decidedly heterogeneous laity that is coming into the ACNA. Although laity with incoming “baggage” is nothing new to the Anglican-Episcopal world (as I noted in My Mother the Exvangelical) a clergy that’s for the most part on the same page would help dealing with issues like I Wonder…How Many of these ACNA Exvangelicals Still Believe in Eternal Security?
If a weak Archbishop is elected, the ACNA runs the very real risk of being overran by Nigeria because the lifeboat that saved many clergy, has now become a U-Boat intent on firing with full effect.
I don’t think the effort by the Nigerians is as big of a deal re the ACNA in general as some do. It’s true that many clergy “owe” the Nigerians but as time rolls on many of them (like Beach himself) will “age out” of the system. They may be able to pick up a few congregations but I don’t see a massive shift towards a church with direct African oversight.
When looking at the field of candidates there are very few Bishops, (made fewer by retirements) who have board international experience, are actively serving on the board(s) of Seminaries educating Anglican clergy, have current experience regularly testifying and meeting with our elected officials in Washington, D.C. advocating for religious freedom and liberty, who have more than a decade of Episcopal experience leading large and diverse groups of clergy, and who have significant experience standing up for their Diocese and the ACNA on a global stage.
This is a sad admission, that a denomination whose Anglican spirituality has attracted generations of American leaders is left with that shallow of a bench.
We must pray against ego’s and agendas and pray that the Lord’s will be done and let us all pray that the next Archbishop of the ACNA will not be her last.
I’ve railed against Egos Inflatable to Any Size: The ACNA-AMiA Fiasco and other similar kerfuffles. It’s a thing in the Anglican world, and it’s sad to see. May God bless and guide the ACNA in this critical moment, our prayers are needed.
Note on Justin Murff: I had the honour to meet him at a Regent University event, where he is an adjunct faculty member. But he’s not in the Divinity school; he’s in the Robertson School of Government. Justin is also related to Don Murff, whose contributions to geotechnical engineering in the offshore oil industry–my specialty–are considerable, and whose comment on my MS thesis was very nice.
Also on the faculty of the Robertson School of Government is another Anglican divine, the Rev. Dr. Andrew J. Nolte. He has the distinction of being the only member of the Regent faculty who is fulfilling the original commission of the school as a Christian University.
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Fenestrae de Allegoriae: Allegory As A Window to Reality–The North American Anglican
This very elegant piece (written by a guy from Arkansas, something I understand well) underscores an unpopular but ultimately unavoidable reality we need to face: without recovering at least the Patristic idea of Biblical interpretation, we’re going to be in serious trouble. I’m not sure this is adding to what he says but it’s a little more direct:
- The ultimate reality in the universe is one we cannot see, i.e. the spiritual. This fact has been lost to contemporary Christianity, which is one reason why a blindly literal view of Scripture has become so popular.
- I don’t think the Patristic method can be always characterised as allegorical. I think a better term to use for most of it is typological.
- The fact that we can legitimately interpret the Scriptures in this way is a sign that we have a Divine book. (You’re welcome, Orthodox.)
- I don’t see this impinging upon taking the moral commands of the Scriptures at their face value, it’s impossible to do them any other way. That eliminates much of the mischief we see the postmodernists inflict on us. On the other hand…
- …finding typological value in the Old Law is certainly fair game, considering Our Lord came to fulfil the Law. Re-establishing the real relationships between the Testaments would go a long way to getting rid of the synthetic Judaism that dominates large parts of Christianity these days.
- And, of course…there’s always the question of the seven days!
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Feeling the Pain and Answering the Question About Roman Catholicism
There are times in life when some of the buried past comes up, and last week was one of them. Last Thursday, we said goodbye to the matriarch of the family that lead the Catholic Charismatic prayer group I was a part of in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. We’ve stayed connected with the family so it wasn’t like, “we haven’t seen you in years” and the reciprocal.
As I’ve said many times, my years as a Roman Catholic were crucial in my formation as a Christian, both intellectual and spiritual. The prayer group was in the centre of the last act or two of that play. I outlined that history in my tribute to her husband, who passed away in a house fire in 2008. The suppression of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in Chattanooga forced a course correction for me which wasn’t really voluntary but has been a fruitful endeavour of its own. I still believe that the main driver in that suppression was the desire of local Catholicism for respectability, something the Renewal didn’t seem to confer. It was also driven by the change in pontificate. John Paul II wanted to run a tighter ship, and ecumenical movements such as the Charismatic one didn’t fit in his agenda. Knowingly or not, his desire for institutional integrity outweighed his ostensible pastoral desire for a laity alive in its faith. (In some ways that desire outweighed any impulse on his part to get to the bottom of the priestly sex scandals, a thing that the current Occupant of the See of St. Peter shares.)
The Charismatic Renewal had its own problems. Many of those centred around the authority issue in the covenant communities. I had beaten those off in Dallas before coming to Chattanooga, and I was blessed to be a part of a group whose leadership did the same in the group, even with the head of the Tennessee-Georgia Christian Camps in our midst. Ultimately though it wasn’t enough.
Those controversies and the fallout were long in the past when we gathered to say farewell to Jo Ann Roueché. Her funeral was lovely, but you could tell the priests who celebrated it were more traditional than those who did her husband’s sixteen years ago. The program “read the riot act” about who was allowed to receive the Body of Christ, and I still have a hard time with the “new” translation of the Mass. The music was a mix. They started with this classic from the “old folk Mass” and had some traditionally Protestant songs but many were more “traditionally” Catholic. It worked well because, in the aftermath of the suppression, her children started the Roueché Chorale, which has become a community institution, and perform everything with their characteristic professionalism.
That music produced one of those “aha” moments. The Chorale’s style is more formal and beyond the folk style which predominated during the Charismatic Renewal. But then I realised: I’ve been asking the questions like How Did We Get From Scanlan to #straightouttairondale? I then realised the answer was right in front of me: the Catholic Church had beaten us (well, some of us) into submission, those who were left had to adjust and adapt. That beatdown got a professional explanation in David Peterman and the Hard Choices of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, but from a worship style standpoint the guitar strummers had to put them back into the case for good, and the hand raisers had to lower them for the last time.
The chief victims of the current papal beatdown are the trads. I’m not really in sync with their idea but I am sympathetic with their suffering from the way the Church is treating them. It’s the same story we went through. After I left I read Pascal’s Provincial Letters, and considering what he and the Jansenists went though, I saw the same story. No matter what motivation you ascribe to these beatdowns, the result is always the same: the enforcement of mediocrity amongst those who have to “know when to kneel, when to stand, and when to reach for their wallet.“
For those of us who were challenged by the Church and then betrayed in this way, it still hurts, even after all of these years.
Memory eternal, and my prayers are with the family.
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Appeal to Novelty–The Logical Place
Probably the most egregious use of this fallacy in recent times was in selling the public on the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. These had not been tried on such a wide scale, and doing so was, IMHO, scientifically irresponsible. At the time I was suspicious of this and stuck with a more traditional adenovirus vaccine (J&J) which itself had been trashed by its competitors.
That suspicion, in turn, was based on experience both in my usual profession and with computers. Just because something is the “latest and the greatest” doesn’t mean it’s the best. But that was the way these vaccines were sold to the public.
In the end, I think this will have long-term effects on people that are only now being realised.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 