So says the Archbishop of Canterbury:
The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that the Anglican church is tottering on the brink of disintegration amid disputes between liberals and traditionalists.
At last someone has noticed. Sadly, although the prognosis is probably accurate, the diagnosis isn’t.
The cause of the Anglican malaise has never been the fact that there are disputes between liberals and conservatives; the cause is simply that liberals have got it wrong.
Justin Welby went on to note:
In his most stark comments yet about divisions over issues such as homosexuality, the Most Rev Justin Welby said the Church was coming perilously close to plunging into a “ravine of intolerance”.
“Intolerance” isn’t the problem either; misrepresenting Christianity – and that’s what liberals in the homosexuality debate tend to do – is intolerable.
Yet he added that many of the issues over which different factions in the Church were fighting were “incomprehensible” to people outside it.
Undoubtedly true; but the incomprehensibility of the debate doesn’t mean – as Welby seems to imply – that both factions must be incorrect.
“On one side is the steep fall into an absence of any core beliefs, a chasm where we lose touch with God, and thus we rely only on ourselves and our own message. On the other side there is a vast fall into a ravine of intolerance and cruel exclusion. It is for those who claim all truth, and exclude any who question.”
The first sentence is a suitable epithet for North American Anglicanism. The second is a sure sign that Welby has been conned by liberals into believing that conservatives are intolerant and that making any demands of anyone renders a church exclusive. The third appears to be a concession to contemporary relativism: truth is unknowable.
At least one thing is correct: we are staggering close to the edge of a cliff.
So what is he planning to do about it?
It’s amusing to see the mask slipping from Welby. He wouldn’t have been appointed if the establishment hadn’t been sure, positive, that he would get the gays into bishoprics. The rest is eyewash.
I never worry about the future of the church if the eternal triune God is in charge of it.
AMEN!
You may not be worried about the future of the church, but maybe you should be worried about the future of those misled by some elements of it.
I am more concerned about who is in charge of the church – God or humans. It is interesting to note that Romania, one of Europe’s poorest nations, is building a new church every three days (Christianity Today, August 21, 2013). If God is behind this church growth, I will praise God. If the devil is behind this cancerous growth, then I will be concerned about it.
It sounds to me that he is continuing the work of his predecessor. Although he may think that he is holding a middle ground where reconciliation and compromise may be achieved, he does not realize that neither can ever be accomplished. Those who want to bless homosexual relationships will not settle for anything less than a total and complete victory, one in which they will even be “blessed” and called “married”. Those who remain faithful to God and to what God has said in His Holy Scriptures can never condone this sin, never mind endorse and accept it.
Until or unless the ABC makes an actual decision and chooses a side the Church of England will continue to tear itself apart.
The key to understanding the CoE and the ACoC is statistical: how many bishops and how man clergy are homosexual.
Get out of the closet and show your true colours. Like SO many of them, Welby is a ‘happily married man with children’. We never here or see much of these supporting role actors, but when we do they are usual rather ‘strange’ with sad haunted countenances; something that I labelled the ‘Anglican Wives Syndrome’ years ago.
The aforementioned Anglican churches are already doomed, and I doubt that the ANiC and other conservative offshoots will survive either once they have nothing to pitch themselves against. And all, but for different reasons, because of homosexuality.
Sorry folks! Peace and free speech!
Kevin Holdsworth did not like Archbishop Welby’s Mexico sermon. To him the Archbishop used language which appears to suggest that the risk that those who wish to affirm gay people present is one of a lack or loss of core beliefs (TitusOneNine, August 27, 2013).