The Bishop of Caledonia doesn’t approve:
“As a bishop, I cannot recognize the legitimacy of what Niagara is doing,” said Bishop Bill Anderson of the diocese of Caledonia. “I sadly conclude that Niagara has chosen to walk apart, and is therefore in a state of impaired communion.”
Bishop Bird from the Niagara Diocese claims, however, that the blessing of same-sex-couples is prophetic, not contrary to the core doctrine of the ACoC – many people have searched for years and still have found nothing that is contrary to the core doctrine of the ACoC – and is fully in line with the typical Anglican heterosexual wedding:
One of the things gleaned from my OT theology courses was that the Prophets really didn’t want the job and seemed not brag about their position. And of course we are reminded many times about false teachers and how to respond to them. Perhaps Bp Bird could get a job at Revenue Canada and be treated accordingly.
Prophecy – in every form, great or small – is a valid issuance when what is prophesied points to what God knows: where you were, where you are and who you are, and where you will or can be, following his ways. Any part is eligible for “testing.” Any part may contain rebuke and or blessing. And it is true that New Covenant prophecy is “seasoned” with the grace and mercy that is afforded through the Blood of the Lamb sacrificed for us all.
The testing can be simplistically understood as noting that God knows you back then, now and what you will or can be, all facets pointing to the same God at the same locus. Thus, any part of the three facets of such prophecy that is inconsistent with each other raises a red flag as to its Truth, and its source. Typically, the false prophet only speaks from the vantage of only one of those three points, the knowledge and revelation being espoused coming from some other source other than God. In fact, an other spirit (although I am willing to concede two other sources, as the Book of Common Prayer speaks to so effortlessly: the World and the Flesh — a “prophecy” that only mirrors society yet claims to be a “new word” is a case in point).
Given God’s current mercy, Bishop Bird, without taking another look at how this subject “lines up” with God, that is testing for God’s consistency, will find himself in the unenviable position of having spoken a prophetic word from a source other than the Holy Spirit.
Besides himself, I’m sure the collateral damage has already commenced. But the Enemy’s ultimate objective is to “take out” the bishop, begetting “negative glory” to God. Pray for his eyes to be opened to God’s Word.
The job of the prophets, surely, was to bring the people back to what God had long-ago ordained and desired, when the people had gone astray after new gods/doctrines. It was not their activity/mission to think up new beliefs, or anounce that God’s once-expressed wish was now to be disregarded, turned upside down (didn’t C. S. Lewis say that the job of moral reformers, in the Church for example, was to remind people of what God had previously commanded, to return them to the old/true ways, not introduce new ones?). So the new revisionist “prophets” are not prophets in any real sense at all.