We are not surprised in the least by AZ's TEC Bishop lamenting the poor intellectual and leadership equipment and skills from/for TEC seminary graduates. No surprises there. We have seen that predominantly in our experience, despite TEC's longstanding effort to rebut that image. Anglicanism has had a long history of scholarly Rectors and Professors, but, with liberalism's eviserative impulse intellectually and propensity to mysticism's legacy, the fruits have been seen. Exhibit A--theologically, Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori. She abhors classical, catholic, and confessional Christendom.
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=16474
Dear Brothers and Sisterswww.virtueonline.org
August 31, 2012
When you live in the rarefied world of Anglican politics where liberal and conservative theologians talk, think and rage publicly, where bishops offer up their wisdom, (a lot of it unmitigated rubbish) and priests move across the Anglican chess board with handwringing exculpations and reasons why they do what they must do, it is important to remember that Jesus began his earthly ministry with 12 fisherman who had little education, took three years to get the hang of the message, became His most radical disciples and then died pretty miserable deaths. Of course things changed with the much educated St. Paul, but the first disciples got first dibs on the Master and we must never forget that. The opening salvos were from fishermen not theologians.
I say this because The Living Church, a magazine for catholic, evangelical and ecumenical Episcopalians and Anglicans whose editor Dr. Christopher Wells is a man I regard highly and whose news (associate) editor Doug LeBlanc I regard as a personal friend, ran a number of articles in their August 26 issue that, frankly, blew my mind.
The Rev. Canon Michael Poon, director and Asian Christianity coordinator of the Centre for the Study, wrote an article titled LOOK BEYOND ENGLAND looking at the global picture of Anglicanism. He concluded the article, "For me, as those in the Oxford Movement once saw, the disestablished American Episcopal Church, holding out the vision of a catholic and missionary Church, offers a more promising future of spiritual renewal for the Anglican world. The Episcopal Church, a spiritual forbear of Anglicans in Asia, will continue to occupy a central place in God's unfinished plans for Anglicans. The shaping of the next generation is the key."
Say what?
What world is he living in? Does he not know anything about what has and is going on in TEC or why it was necessary for the birth of AMIA, CANA and, ultimately, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA)? Does someone need to buy him a round trip ticket (Singapore to NY) to see the state of The Episcopal Church? Does he have any idea what damage Bishop Gene Robinson and the later consecration of a lesbian bishop has been done to the integrity and gospel witness of TEC? Does he need to witness how multiple lawsuits over church property that has run into the tens of millions of dollars and has bankrupted the church? Does he not know of the more than 100,000 who have fled TEC and formed ACNA which now fast approaches 1,000 new churches? If he came to NY City, would he arrive in time to see a For Sale sign on the doors of 815 2nd Avenue in order to keep paying the legal fees of David Booth Beers? Is he aware of closing cathedrals, of aging and dying parishes with virtually no evangelizing going on at all? What "next generation" is Poon talking about?
TEC's seminaries are in deep financial trouble and the product they are turning out has even been criticized by the liberal bishop of Arizona Kirk Smith who publicly said we need to reduce the number of seminaries to three and then opined that "The graduates they turn out-and I speak from personal experience-are not exactly well-formed, either in intellectual knowledge or leadership ability. We need scholars in the church, to be sure, but even more we need young men and women who can grow the church. This clearly is not happening, which means..." What about this does Poon not understand? Even the liberals know the church is in trouble and Poon says that "TEC will shape the next generation."
If he was looking beyond England, why did he not see the rise of the GAFCON in the Global South, or the totality of the Global South that owns 80% of the Anglican Communion and is pretty solidly evangelical? Why did he ignore the Jerusalem Declaration which has more support than The Covenant?
Another article by Mark Chapman, an Oxford theologian, does a Retrospect on the tenure of Rowan Williams painting him as a sort of heroic failure, a man who consistently did not force his own views on people, or usually even given a steer. He closes with this, "Williams has carried the burdens of conflict, and has shown a huge and sometimes costly commitment to unity...".
What unity? When Robinson was consecrated in 2003, Williams did nothing about it except to say that this was not a nice thing to do and please don't do it again...that this could affect unity. Global South leaders never again broke bread at any primatial gathering with Frank Griswold, abandoning altogether such gatherings, and began forming their own more perfect unions. What about the absence of 200 bishops at the last Lambeth conference.
Both men write as though the C of E and TEC are still somehow viable players in global Anglicanism; SE Asian theologian Poon completely ignores the incredible evangelical growth of the Global South and their growing leadership role in the Anglican Communion. He praises The Covenant without mentioning The Jerusalem Declaration.
One sees the same kind of blindness in North American Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) theologians. I wonder if, perhaps, I am slowly losing my mind and that one day I will wake up from some spiritual fog -- just in time to see TEC rise up in glory as its finances dwindle, its parishes close, its aging flocks die off leading us all into the Promised Land of completed "listening", renewal, reconciliation and revival with a smear of Indaba to make it all work.
For a truly brilliant analysis of Poon's diatribe read Canon Phil Ashey's Look Not to The Episcopal Church here: http://tinyurl.com/8bfhy6v
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=16474
Dear Brothers and Sisterswww.virtueonline.org
August 31, 2012
When you live in the rarefied world of Anglican politics where liberal and conservative theologians talk, think and rage publicly, where bishops offer up their wisdom, (a lot of it unmitigated rubbish) and priests move across the Anglican chess board with handwringing exculpations and reasons why they do what they must do, it is important to remember that Jesus began his earthly ministry with 12 fisherman who had little education, took three years to get the hang of the message, became His most radical disciples and then died pretty miserable deaths. Of course things changed with the much educated St. Paul, but the first disciples got first dibs on the Master and we must never forget that. The opening salvos were from fishermen not theologians.
I say this because The Living Church, a magazine for catholic, evangelical and ecumenical Episcopalians and Anglicans whose editor Dr. Christopher Wells is a man I regard highly and whose news (associate) editor Doug LeBlanc I regard as a personal friend, ran a number of articles in their August 26 issue that, frankly, blew my mind.
The Rev. Canon Michael Poon, director and Asian Christianity coordinator of the Centre for the Study, wrote an article titled LOOK BEYOND ENGLAND looking at the global picture of Anglicanism. He concluded the article, "For me, as those in the Oxford Movement once saw, the disestablished American Episcopal Church, holding out the vision of a catholic and missionary Church, offers a more promising future of spiritual renewal for the Anglican world. The Episcopal Church, a spiritual forbear of Anglicans in Asia, will continue to occupy a central place in God's unfinished plans for Anglicans. The shaping of the next generation is the key."
Say what?
What world is he living in? Does he not know anything about what has and is going on in TEC or why it was necessary for the birth of AMIA, CANA and, ultimately, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA)? Does someone need to buy him a round trip ticket (Singapore to NY) to see the state of The Episcopal Church? Does he have any idea what damage Bishop Gene Robinson and the later consecration of a lesbian bishop has been done to the integrity and gospel witness of TEC? Does he need to witness how multiple lawsuits over church property that has run into the tens of millions of dollars and has bankrupted the church? Does he not know of the more than 100,000 who have fled TEC and formed ACNA which now fast approaches 1,000 new churches? If he came to NY City, would he arrive in time to see a For Sale sign on the doors of 815 2nd Avenue in order to keep paying the legal fees of David Booth Beers? Is he aware of closing cathedrals, of aging and dying parishes with virtually no evangelizing going on at all? What "next generation" is Poon talking about?
TEC's seminaries are in deep financial trouble and the product they are turning out has even been criticized by the liberal bishop of Arizona Kirk Smith who publicly said we need to reduce the number of seminaries to three and then opined that "The graduates they turn out-and I speak from personal experience-are not exactly well-formed, either in intellectual knowledge or leadership ability. We need scholars in the church, to be sure, but even more we need young men and women who can grow the church. This clearly is not happening, which means..." What about this does Poon not understand? Even the liberals know the church is in trouble and Poon says that "TEC will shape the next generation."
If he was looking beyond England, why did he not see the rise of the GAFCON in the Global South, or the totality of the Global South that owns 80% of the Anglican Communion and is pretty solidly evangelical? Why did he ignore the Jerusalem Declaration which has more support than The Covenant?
Another article by Mark Chapman, an Oxford theologian, does a Retrospect on the tenure of Rowan Williams painting him as a sort of heroic failure, a man who consistently did not force his own views on people, or usually even given a steer. He closes with this, "Williams has carried the burdens of conflict, and has shown a huge and sometimes costly commitment to unity...".
What unity? When Robinson was consecrated in 2003, Williams did nothing about it except to say that this was not a nice thing to do and please don't do it again...that this could affect unity. Global South leaders never again broke bread at any primatial gathering with Frank Griswold, abandoning altogether such gatherings, and began forming their own more perfect unions. What about the absence of 200 bishops at the last Lambeth conference.
Both men write as though the C of E and TEC are still somehow viable players in global Anglicanism; SE Asian theologian Poon completely ignores the incredible evangelical growth of the Global South and their growing leadership role in the Anglican Communion. He praises The Covenant without mentioning The Jerusalem Declaration.
One sees the same kind of blindness in North American Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) theologians. I wonder if, perhaps, I am slowly losing my mind and that one day I will wake up from some spiritual fog -- just in time to see TEC rise up in glory as its finances dwindle, its parishes close, its aging flocks die off leading us all into the Promised Land of completed "listening", renewal, reconciliation and revival with a smear of Indaba to make it all work.
For a truly brilliant analysis of Poon's diatribe read Canon Phil Ashey's Look Not to The Episcopal Church here: http://tinyurl.com/8bfhy6v
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