THE MCJ

It's not worth thinking about such a thing.

The solution has been provided by GOD at GAFCON

Williams - or anyone else - advocating or arguing for any other plan are denying God's direct command

The key phrase from GAFCON is Whether or not the tool of covenant is the right way to approach the crisis within the Communion

and the rest of their covenant response goes on to make clear it damn well isn't.

What is required is obedience to the authority established in the Primates Council - truly Anglican authority at last truly established by God.

Nothing more and nothing less will do.

This plan is a "non-startered". It will never be authorised by the Primate's Council - so ECUSA remains a mission field to the True Anglicans of the World

After the Presiding Bishop signs her name to the First Universal Anglican Canon Law, then goes home and tells everyone not to worry: that it isn't worth the paper it's written on since the national Constitution and Canons trump the unilateral imposition of a foreign diktat by an unelected hierarchy of theocrats on the National Church of the U.S. of A., and besides, it hasn't been yet voted on at General Convention for adoption.

Cue TEC wrapping itself in the Stars and Stripes in a reprise of "Brits Out! Yankee Doodle Dandy! Born on the Fourth of July!" rhetoric that we were treated to previously, and I rather somehow have a vague inkling that General Convention will throw it out with the tealeaves.

I posted on this HERE before being kicked off SFiF for being an articulate anglocatholic.

And you're right -- rejection of the authority of nearly half the Ecumencial Councils is hardly "orthodox". I expect GAFCon chose to only list four because, in its efforts to include basically anyone who objects to the homosexualist heresy (regardless of their other differences), they didn't want to take a stand on an issue which might prove divisive among its members.

pax,
LP
Check out the blogfeed collector at the bottom of my blog which lists current headlines from over a dozen Anglican blogs.

About your ejection from SF, we could all go on and on about it. Still, I would suggest you take it as a compliment. You lasted a long time, which says you have real tact. But, you still got kicked off which means that you wrote with the real authority born of comprehensive knowledge and a commitment to your point of view.

If there is anything we have come to know it is that SFIF is essentially a handful of bright articulate people who have an obsessive need to be reminded by the masses that they are bright, articulate people who say things that are very bright in an articulate way. The last thing they need is another bright articulate person whose point of view is even a hair's breadth off from theirs whom the masses might also applaud and learn from.

So, LP, let me say thank you for your weighty contributions!

Whereas at the MFwFCFJ we're just thick dump yokels who don't really give a s**t any more about the damned apostate heretics

* for corroboration of this assertion, see:

http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2008/07/articles-of-church-of-england.html

GAFCON is making a commendable effort to keep the catholic Anglican wing on board (with the exception of LP's group (ACC, et al.), of course, but they don't WANT to be on board).

If, on the other hand, you mean that they're actually trying to understand and welcome them, then I'd have to say no. The thing is, there are some issues on which you simply can't have both positions fully represented. You can't have a group in full jurisdictional and sacramental communion which respects "both integrities" on the W.O. issue by having women priests and bishops in one part and still "includes" those who have a catholic ecclesiology in another. Not for any lack of good will -- but simply of straightforward logical necessity.

As I"ve said before (and [more importantly] others, e.g. +Rodgers of the AMiA have also said), what GAFCon needs to to is stop trying to "include" everyone who objects to Anglican homosexualism, but instead set forth the basics needed for jurisdictional and sacramental communion.

Sure, there will be lots of issues which don't require such definition - in which differing points of view are still compatible within one communion. And, yes, the Declaration of Jerusalem is a start. But it still leaves some basic elements (of ecclesiology and sacramental theology) undefined which need to be clarified. And if that leaves some people out, fine. Better that than vagueness.

From which perspective, I'd hardly describe as "commendable" their efforts to "include" anglocatholics by not expressly ruling out their catholic beliefs and practices. Not, that is, where that lack of clarity prevents them from establishing the basic parameters required to set up a meaningful and sound "communion" and "jurisdictions."

pax,
LP
Check out the blogfeed collector at the bottom of my blog which lists current headlines from over a dozen Anglican blogs.

Would one (or more)of you set up a defense (or point us to one or a book/article) of the Scriptural basis for the sacerdotal priesthood?

In order to object to female priesthood, don't you have to ascribe to this doctrinal (or dogmatic) position?

While I do not believe in women priests, I do believe physical nature teaches complementarity and male initiation, provision for and protection of females - but that both are necessary for life to go on - in the Church and in nature. Else why would the Holy Spirit fall upon the women.

I also believe that the whole problems could be solved by males being 'called' priests and males only consecrating the Eucharist. Females in Christian ministry should be willing to work under male authority, not permitted to consecrate the host in Church and called something else like Matrons or another female name.

Husband and wife partnerships in ministry are probably what God had in mind. That way, the male could be guarded and chaperoned while counseling the 'fallen troubled, but attractive females in distress' that so often result in misdeeds and indiscretions in ministry.

THINK ABOUT IT, having only males in ministry sets up an incomplete, rather homosexual dynamic situation in seminaries and among priestly colleagues.

Sexual, mental and behavioral chastity, purity and holiness ARE mandatory; celibacy should be entirely voluntary.

I don't have a lot of time right now for a long exposition, but there are a couple of points worth making. First, it's entirely reasonable to oppose women's ordination on the "headship" basis, without reference to sacramental theology. You know the Pauline references to that, I'm sure.

Second, I do think gender complementarity is a legitimate issue, but I don't think it must necessarily tie it to the married state. There is a long history of celibate nuns and sisters working side-by-side with celibate priests and brothers, not to mention the more mundane roles of men and women in non-ordained Christian service. As always, it's worth noting that priestly celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrine. And, frankly, it's a discipline works quite well for us. Of course, sexual improprieties occur, but the vast majority of priests don't violate their vows. It would, in fact, be interesting to compare the rates of infidelity among married men to the rates of sexual misbehavior among 1.) married clergy and 2.) celibate clergy.

As for the biblical basis of sacramental theology (including the sacrament of Holy Orders), I think you have to look at the example of Jesus in chosing the apostles as well as his words. He chose these men, gave them specific spiritual commissions and authorities. The priestly state particularly has two sacramental duties reserved to it: presiding at the Eucharist and offering Absolution to the penitent. The first was given "the night before he died" and the second after the Resurraction, in John 20 (vs. 23-24). From the dominical references, I think we should move to the apostolic witness in Acts, where even the table service - the practical ministries of a community - was ordained service. It's clear from extra-biblical references that the bishop was the chief celebrant at the Eucharist from the 1st century. While that's not definitive for doctrine, it seems to me the biblical references should then be understood in the light other things we know.

Well, there's a lot more to say, but no time.

Just email me at am_lewis (at) bellsouth.net and I will be happy to supply it for you. The writing is clear, concise and biblically based. You will not find one bit of "justice" theology in it. It was written by a retired ECUSA priest who is now a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church. He is performing supply work in Virginia.

"Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that such person or persons to whom your highness, your heirs, or successors, shall hereafter by letters patents under the great seal of England give authority to have or execute any jurisdiction, power, or authority spiritual, or to visit, reform, order, or correct any errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, or enormities by virtue of this act, shall not in any wise have authority or power to order, determine, or adjudge any matter or cause to be heresy but only such as heretofore have been determined, ordered, or adjudged to be heresy by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general councils or any of them, or any other general council wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the said canonical Scriptures, or such as hereafter shall be ordered, judged, or determined to be heresy by the high court of parliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in their convocation - anything in this act contained to the contrary notwithstanding..."

The whole Act can be found transcribed here:

http://members.shaw.ca/reformation/1559supremacy.htm

and the Act of Uniformity passed by the same 1559 Parliament (which passed the House of Lords by only 21 votes in favor to 18 against, and that after 5 of the most committed Catholic bishops had been kept away through house arrest) can be read here:

http://members.shaw.ca/reformation/1559uniformity.htm

In order to object to female priesthood, don't you have to ascribe to this doctrinal (or dogmatic) position?

The short answer is "No." There are other very good reasons to be against WO: Created Order, the practice of both Jesus and the early church (aka Tradition), the nature of the priesthood and the nature of the Church herself.

The PDF file I mentioned in my previous post touches on most of these. There are other reasons - the iconic nature of the priesthood - which Fr. Warren did not go into in his presentation.

The AMiA has done a study on the question and they have a link to it on their website which is located here. Just clck on "About" in the top menu bar and then click on "Recommended Reading" on the side bar of the succeeding page. Scroll down and there will be a link to the study on women's ordination. If you cannot get that link to work (I just tried and it timed out), let me know and I can email you a PDF of the study. I still have it somewhere.

Just in case you missed it in my earlier post my email address is
am_lewis (at) bellsouth.net.

I don't need a whole lot of spam, so I have not given it in standard form. I think you can work it out!! :-P

Why does Dr. Williams think that a Canon Law Blueprint is going to be of any use? The Episcopal Church does not obey its own canons. Why would they obey any canons imposed on them by a "foreign jurisdiction"?

As for the "moderate" conservative plan - now there's an oxymoron! - this is just warmed-over DEPO with foreign Primates thrown in. Bishop Jefferts Schori has already rejected such an idea when the Primates Meeting suggested it. Why would she agree to it now? If she did agree to such a plan, how long would that agreement last? I suspect it would be shot down by GenCon 2009 as being "against Episcopal Church polity" (pabbut). So all in all, not worth wasting the trees to publish it.

No - what Rogers of AMiA needs to do is to obey his bishop.

The GAFCON structures and the Jerusalem Declaration are quite clear. They are the new convenant and the new communion and those who oppose them are working directly against the will of God.

So there it is. Rogers and all there rest - as the centurion said - are under authority and that is where the matter rests.

And I can be sure that this will be a difficult time for all you individualist, life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness Americans - but the time has come for you to realise that such attutides are not the way of Christ

If you wish to be part of the new communion, you do not need to sign a covenant. You simply need to find a bishop whose minstry is authorised by the Primates Council and then obey that bishop

Now - how hard is that?

First you called for leadership - and complained when there was none!
Now you have leadership - and you are still complaining!

And then there is the case of widespread bribery by liberals of conservative African bishops to stay away from GAFCON. I have the headline here: Bribery by Liberals Widespread among Poor African Anglican Bishops.

Floridian stated...

"Husband and wife partnerships in ministry are probably what God had in mind."

Well, that is the way it works in Orthodoxy. Forgive me if I am going over stuff that you already know, but the priest's wife in the Greek Orthodox Church is "presbytera," and in the Antiochian Church she is Khouria. She usually leads the choir, or the Sunday School, and is very much the priest's partner in the running of the parish.

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- Almost all those who argue for WO do so from an assumption that the only reason to exclude women from the sacerdotal priesthood is blind sexist prejudice – in much the same way that those who argue that the only barrier against gay ordination is irrational homophobia. They do not believe (or take seriously) the fact that people can object to WO/GO on the basis of reason; they chalk it up to the following:

1) Ignorance – pro-WOers think all they need to do is “educate” their opponents properly, and opposition will disappear.

2) Stupidity – If “education” doesn’t work to change opponents’ minds, they assume that the fault must be in their opponents' lack of intelligence and not in the pro-WOer’s logical construct.

3) Evil – If an opponent is resistant to “education” and otherwise demonstrates some obvious intellectual capacity, they conclude that the person must be simply willful and obstinate in their resistance to the truth, i.e. in the grip of evil.

This is evident in the victors’ reactions to their opponents in the recent debate in England over women bishops – they talked about any attempts to accommodate dissenters from the policy as discrimination (and we all know how that word has come to mean “damned lie from the pit of hell, if there is one”).

This bespeaks an exchange, a substitution, of the axioms of modern philosophy for those underlying the ancient theology and practice of the Church. The traditional teaching of the Church is judged to be unjust on the basis of these new axioms. These axioms/assumptions include:

- Freedom and Autonomy are pure and absolute Goods, defined as Whatever I Determine Will Fulfill Me (i.e., Whatever I Feel Like Doing) with no restrictions whatsoever.

- Since the Enlightenment, the concepts and criteria defining human nature/personhood have become legitimate subjects of debate. Because there is no longer a consensus as to what “human nature” is, the meaning of all other aspects of human existence, including gender, are also subject to debate. It is important constantly to assert one’s will against the forces of nature and the “status quo” in thought and society so that the absolute Good of Freedom is never compromised.

- Justice equals not just equal respect or equal dignity, but absolute equality – in mathematical terms, interchangeability. Justice must be “blind” and “not discriminatory” in this sense.

These axioms have been substituted for the following, on which Christian theology has rested for the last 2000 years:

- Freedom is the ability to become what you are meant to be (i.e., the right to develop and grow according to your nature as a human being) – as JPII put it, “Freedom is not the right to do as you please, but the right to become what you ought [to be].”

- Human nature/personhood/consciousness is a reflection of God as Being (we are made in the image of God), and human dignity is inviolable. There is a knowable content to human nature by which one may be guided in developing one’s own potential, based on God’s revelation in the person of Christ combined with millennia of observation, experience, and reason. To mature and grow as a human is to incorporate this content into one’s personality and thus harmonize oneself with the world and with God as He exists, or with the world as it is meant to be. Though the world is not perfect and we have a responsibility to remake certain parts of it, there is a Pattern and Design that we must be guided by in our efforts.

- Justice is realized to the extent that the world conforms to this Pattern that the Creator put in place. Just as two separate natures/essences exist in one Person in the Hypostatic Union in Jesus Christ, it is possible that the one human essence that exists in two sorts of human bodies (male and female) can be equally valued and respected in two different forms without the need to conflate or confuse them. Interchangeability is not a requirement for justice.

===

A discussion of rights and responsibilities might be useful here. It should be noted that rights are not created ex nihilo, with the result being rights, rights everywhere amongst the spring flowers and chirping birdies. :^) Human rights are inherent in human dignity and are granted by God; they are not societal constructs. When we as a society set out to “give” or “create” rights for certain people, the “creation” or reinforcement of any right brings with it the responsibility for others to grant that right.

- Thus, the assertion of the “right” of gays to marry in MA entailed the “responsibility” of Catholic Charities to treat them as legitimate families/couples and place children with them for adoption. Their refusal to do so caused their adoption services to cease.

- A wedding photographer in NM was asked to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony and refused. She was fined thousands of dollars by a human rights board for “discriminating while offering a public service”, a discrimination which, according to their judgment, thoroughly crushed her own free speech rights.

- The debate and passage of approval for women bishops in England included only the weakest suggestion of accommodation for those opposed to the practice. Any mention of legislative “protection” or “safeguard” of those congregations from the rest of the church’s practice was met with cries of unjust “discrimination” by the pro-WO groups. The assumption is that those WO opponents, will they nil they, have an unavoidable responsibility to grant the women the right to be regarded as what they feel they are, i.e. women “bishops”.

When rights are “created” in this way by majority vote or societal consensus, it’s pretty much a zero sum game. And unfortunately religious freedom is being set up to be the loser.

7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.

The Classical Anglican Ordinal does not "include" what is not ontologically possible - a woman priest.

You have done a masterful job of outlining just where the problem lies with the post modern "rights" agenda. Those who hold to that standard have indeed replaced reason and logic with their new constructs of "rights and concurrent responsibilities." It is a bleak picture you have painted, but the current goings on with the Canadian Human Rights Commissions are an ample demonstration of the situation as you painted it.

As the Apostle Paul pointed out in Romans 1, they have abandoned the Creator of the Universe and are now worshipping the creature. The result is as Paul painted it. Unfortunately, Christians are not caught up in the conflict between the Christian worldview and the humanistic "rights" worldview.

The sad thing is that the Christians must submit or suffer grave consequences. It is very scary situation.

Part II of my ruminations is personal: I’ll sketch a little of my conversion story for you. How did I come to believe in the Church’s teaching re: the priesthood? (This is not quite Floridian’s question, which had to do with the Scriptural basis of the priesthood, but in any case, I hope it's illuminating…)

In a nutshell: I was raised Baptist and spent many years as a relatively contented Protestant evangelical. I experienced the charismatic movement in college and was acquainted with stories of the miraculous - and plenty of freaky things happened to me, too. :) I experienced a series of betrayals at the hands of my Christian brothers and sisters, and gained a lot of first-hand knowledge about that wheat-and-tares thing. In the final four years before I converted to Roman Catholicism, I was involved in the “house church” (aka “simple church”) movement, during which I shifted completely out of the traditional Protestant denominational paradigm. We had no building, no denominational ties, no statement of faith, no set format to our gatherings, and no clergy (except for our founder, who insisted on leading “by consensus”). All we had was our Bibles, our baptisms, several guitars, each other, and a desire to “be the New Testament church”. A fascination with iconography and a final falling-out over an emotionally abusive living situation led me at last to consider the claims of the ancient Tradition of the Christian faith.

Before I got to an understanding of the priesthood, I had to hack through the underbrush of several underlying theological concepts:

1) What is a sacrament? What does it mean to celebrate a sacrament? No, really – I know that Protestants call baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and marriage sacraments, but - what happens during these rituals that traditional Christians perform? Is it possible that Christ could really actually be there in bread and wine when they say the prayers and so forth? Is it kinda like my singing and artwork – that I really want God to be there and speak to people through it – but can there be such a thing as a sacramental reality of the presence of God that’s brought into space/time through these actions? They say that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist… could that be… real? True, in an objective sense? Like “Jesus rose from the dead” real, whether I believe in it or not? Like, actually real?

2) What is this “sacrifice” that Catholics talk about in terms of Communion? Didn’t Paul say that Christ as our High Priest “sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself” (Hebrews 7:27)? How could they say the Mass is a sacrifice, where Christ is sacrificed over and over again? But wait – maybe they don’t mean a linear “again and again”, but an entering into kairos (see Acts 3:19 – the Greek word for “times” is kairos, not chronos), the Eternal Now, a folding of time into eternity, where the Mass is a participation and re-presentation of the One Sacrifice. That’s what they seem to say about it – they talk about it as the experience of Christ’s one Sacrifice, which the rest of the New Testament says is the only sacrifice for sin. OK.

3) But, if it’s Christ’s one Sacrifice, there’s an important aspect of that event that needs to be there: Christ offering up Himself. There’s nothing we can do to redeem ourselves; there’s nothing we can give God to ransom our souls. Christ offered up Himself; that was the only solution. So, in order for Christ to be offering up Himself, He must be present somehow – perhaps in that sacramental way? – at that altar so He can do that. That fits with what I’ve heard and read from Catholics: “The priest isn’t really the one who says Mass. Christ is the celebrant at every Mass.” OK – that means that if Christ is present – like, present enough for this to be happening – then there has to be something to this Apostolic Succession thing. No man can speak the words “This is My Body” on anyone’s authority other than that of Christ Himself, and I can see that if He needs to be sacramentally present at the altar to offer up Himself, He can do that through making ordination not just a “dedication” of someone to Christ’s service, but a sacrament that miraculously somehow conveys the real authority and presence of God from the time of the Apostles through the ordained person into our present day experience. Those two things have to work together. If there’s no valid apostolic succession, the authority to speak in Christ’s name (or act in persona Christi) isn’t there, so there’s no Eucharist. If the Eucharist exists, it must exist in conjunction with Christ’s authority functioning through the sacrament of holy orders, descended from Christ and the Apostles.

4) Where can I find that? (I’ll stop the story at this point.)

In sum, first I came to believe that there was such a thing as the Eucharist, the Real Presence of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. Then I came to believe there was such a thing as a priest, because the one thing couldn’t exist without the other. Once I believed in the existence of priests – i.e., people who weren’t just pastors or preachers or group facilitators or charismatic personalities, but real signs of Christ in our midst – I simply accepted the Church’s definition of the matter and form that comprise their existence. Form: Ordination according to the Church’s ancient apostolic rites. Matter: A baptized male. Simple.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again in this context: I don’t feel that an all-male celibate priesthood restricts my freedom as a woman to minister Christ to others in the least. Everything I did as a Protestant I can do as a Catholic. In fact, the ordained priesthood exists mainly to support the lay priesthood (of which I’m a part – I Peter 2:9, Rev. 1:6) in our calling to redeem the temporal order. It’s about collaboration, not competition, baby.

My story seems to echo yours, and I quite agree that an all male priesthood does NOT limit me. In fact, as a Catholic woman, I actually have more opportunities to serve than I did as a Southern Baptist. For example, as a Baptist where I tended to be a member a woman could NEVER serve the Lord's supper (especially a single one) but one of my greatest pleasures is to be a Eucharistic minister.

Around the time of GenCon06, the Lord lead me to a radio ministry called Truth for Life. In the past two years listening to Alistair Begg's teaching has been such a blessing and at times has challenged deeply held opinions and sins. While I find nearly all of his teaching to be edifying, the are a few points of departures as his being was as a Baptist minister. I have never understood the notion that the charismatic gifts ended after the apostolic era. As a hard-line protestant he rebukes such concepts as apostolic succession and the sacramental understanding of communion. That being said, I highly recommend listening to this wonderful expositional preacher with a delightful Scottish brougue.

His latest series called "The Household of God" is teaching on 1st Timothy and the roles in the Church. He deals with the roles of women and men in the church and discusses what is meant by the term "deaconness". I would really appreciate hearing from RC MCJ's such as Allen Lewis and Dr. Tighe and other their impressions of Rev. Begg's take on 1st Timothy.

Wave to Anna, when I was a member of TEO, I also was a LEM and I got great pleasure from it as well. I am in a continuing church now that I dearly love, however I will never be able to be an LEM. In fact, only ordained ministers are allowed to handle the chalice. I have made peace with that fact because of everything else I have gained by leaving TEO. I feel that I am sitting under the Lord's instruction on the nature of obedience in faith by learning to let go. I know this is off-topic but Floridian raised the point of women being under the authority of men, a subject that at one time would have caused me to bristle in anger. That's one of those obedience in faith thingys. As I work my way back through those passages of scripture that are inflammatory for feminists, I now find myself asking the questions again, what is God's will for women who have certain ministerial gifts that are more "male" in nature?

From a strictly scriptural viewpoint, it a woman permitted to be an LEM, a lector, a lay preacher? In that same vein, should a woman lead a Bethel Bible class of both men and women? Can she teach in a seminary? Write a theological treatise? These are not frivilous questions to one who is gifted in arenas that seem, in light of 1st Timothy, to be restricted to women.

I had not heard of Pastor Begg before you mentioned him on this thread. However, on the subject of "female deacons" vs "deaconesses" I would strongly recommend to you the book *Deaconesses: A Historical Study* by Aime-Georges Martimort, translated by Kenneth Whitehead (San Francisco, 1986, 1996: Ig