Western bishops, having cast off the shackles of musty dogma that have been accumulating around the church for the last couple of millennia, are searching earnestly for something that will make people pay attention to them. Something to make them relevant. Something to show the world that they are cool.
National Lutheran Bishop Susan Johnson has the answer. It doesn’t get much cooler than her jitterbug at the Anglican sacred phlogiston shindig:
The leaders of the North American Anglican and Lutheran Churches recently met in Toronto to discuss mission. With each denomination in dramatic decline – the Anglican Church of Canada had a pitiful average Sunday attendance of around 141,000 in 2007 – it only makes sense that they pool their survival strategies, known as “mission” in ecclesiastical parlance, to attempt to eke out an existence at least until the current generation of clergy start collecting their pensions.
This “renewed focus on mission” has created a sense of “renewed energy”, apparently; to paraphrase Dr Johnson, nothing concentrates the mind as effectively as the prospect of one’s imminent demise.
As part of the plan to demonstrate that the denominations are still relevant and to allay the suspicion that the meeting was entirely self-serving, the leaders have promised to issue a joint statement on climate change. Many of us have been waiting agog with anticipation for a joint Anglican-Lutheran statement on climate change: if that doesn’t fill the pews, nothing will.
Fred Hiltz is confident that conflict around same-sex marriage is not as all-consuming as it used to be. This shouldn’t be too surprising since most of those who disagree with the church’s determination to bless same-sex unions have either left, died or are too exhausted to argue any more.
From here:
When the heads of the Anglican and Lutheran Churches in North America met recently in Toronto, a common theme emerged when they shared developments in their respective churches: all felt a sense of “renewed energy” that they attributed to a “renewed focus on mission.”
One of the big things he heard, said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, was that, “We’re in a different place…Notwithstanding the fact that there’s still some tension within our churches around human sexuality, we could all say, ‘we’re in a much less conflicted place.’”
While conflicts around same-sex blessings and same-sex marriages remain, “it’s not all consuming compared to, say, a few years ago,” said Hiltz in an interview.
Hiltz, along with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada Bishop Susan Johnson, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton met in Toronto July 2 and 3. The meeting was the fifth of informal talks colloquially known as the “Four-Way” dialogue.
With three clerical ladies. I don’t know who in Anglican PR land came up with this pithy epithet but, whoever you are, please stop. You are making my job much harder.
The heads of North American Anglican and Lutheran churches are combining their efforts when issuing things like pastoral letters in cases of continental calamities.
The issuing of natural disaster pastoral letters is of such import that their combining will undoubtedly send transcendent ripples of well-being wafting through the entire eco-system. Future generations will declare that this was moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. Really.
From here:
The heads of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have agreed to co-ordinate their responses to “events that transcend” their borders, such as natural disasters.
They could, for instance, issue a joint pastoral letter in response to a natural calamity
[….]
Leaders of the four churches reached this agreement when they met for a day and a half of informal talks last December in Winnipeg. Since 2010, the heads of these four churches have met for informal talks, “becoming colloquially known as the Four-Way“, said Myers.
From here:
Lutheran-Anglican-Episcopal meeting a sign of hope for the church.
Lutheran, Anglican and Episcopal leaders from the United States and Canada met in December to explore new possibilities for working together and to deepen their sense of unity for doing God’s work in the world. In a report issued from their meeting, the leaders stated that their conversation and work together “are hopeful signs for the church.”“There was truly a spirit of Advent expectant hope as we met to pray and plan for greater cooperation in ministry and mission,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the meeting.
North American Anglican and Lutheran denominations have largely abandoned historic Christianity and, consequently, are spiralling rapidly into oblivion as their congregations flee the transparently bogus religion of inclusivity that is now marketed by both organisations.
Thus, in a last ditch effort to create an illusion of vitality, they have decided to join forces in a koinonia of the wishy-washy hoping, presumably, that by increasing the volume of lemmings hurtling off the cliff, the meaningless squealing of those yet to hit the water will be sustained a little longer.
And the Anglican Church is vigorously promoting it, so is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada:
Back to Church Sunday (B2CS) is the largest single local-church invitational initiative in the world. It is based on the simplest and shortest step in evangelism – that we should invite someone we already know to some-thing we love – inviting a friend to our church.
[….]
In Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada has been part of the B2CS initiative for two years. Last year, hundreds of Anglican congregations in Canada contributed to the more than 80,000 people globally that came back to church for B2CS. This year, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is joining the initiative, as are congregations from other Christian traditions.
The week after, both churches will hold services of repentance for Back to Christ Sunday.
Actually, they won’t, that was just my fevered imagination working overtime.
From here:
The Anglican Church of Canada, full communion partner of the ELCIC, supported the meeting. The Primate, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, addressed convention and presided at closing worship. General Synod staff supported online communications.
Human sexuality was one of the most highly anticipated and vigorously debated subjects at National Convention. Delegates first approved a social statement on human sexuality, the result of a four-year consultation and drafting process. The statement analyzes the current social situation, provides theological and ethical foundations, and applies insights from the first two sections to the contemporary situation.
Delegates then passed three motions related to the statement: an Affirmation Concerning the Unity of the Church; a policy statement allowing ministers to preside at or bless legal marriages, including those between same-sex couples, according to the laws of the province; and a policy paving the way for the ordination and installation of gay and lesbian pastors.
The ACoC and ELCiC have been in bed together – or, to use the euphemism currently in vogue, in full communion – since 2001. The two denominations share the same disbeliefs, their members are fleeing at a similar rate and both are impecunious to the extent that neither can afford to hold an independent synod.
On one front, the ECLiC is ahead of the ACoC: they have voted to bless same-sex marriages. At its last synod, the ACoC didn’t vote on this at all, preferring instead to issue a Sexuality Discernment Statement, a document of soporific insignificance that, with a nudge and a wink, tacitly gave dioceses the all clear to do whatever they want, while attempting to protect the national organisation from culpability in the resulting mayhem.
This permitted Fred Hiltz to stay out of trouble with Rowan Williams by claiming that he exercised gracious restraint – the only concept I know that is more meaningless than those contained in the Sexuality Discernment Statement – while giving him the luxury of applauding the ELCIC as it throws itself off the cliff of gender political correctness.
We can only hope that Fred and his ex-church follow suit before the shrieks of the ELCIC waft up when it meets its doom at the bottom.
Is it just me, or is this the most lugubriously dolorous Easter message ever delivered?
Other than their theology, that is.
From here:
Lutheran and Anglican bishops brainstorm solutions to common problems.
Canadian Lutheran churches appear to be faced with many of the same problems known to Canadian Anglicans.
Trying to find homosexuals to marry?
Well, yes, but also:
These include shrinking congregations and an increased interest in weekly eucharist.
What this really means is that many congregations are too small to warrant their own priest, so, if members of these “shrinking congregations” want a weekly eucharist, it may have to be a do-it-yourself job. Not that there’s much wrong with that – at least the sermons might make sense:
Speaking here at the Oct. 22-25 joint meeting of the Anglican House of Bishops and Lutheran Conference of Bishops, she added there has also been pressure to revive a practice of permitting lay people to preside at the sacrament, as some Lutheran churches did at one time.
Dancing like David before the ark, carried away by their love for God? Or a couple of ageing twerps making asses of themselves in their desperation to appear with-it? You decide:
Susan definitely has one up on Fred in the rhythm – and bumping – department.
