Won’t matter. Almost all of the remaining neo-cons left in TEC are dysfunctional enablers anyway. When the Stalinists in TEC come after them, they will spin it as the fault of the ACNA-types who left already.

The greatest predicter of future behavior is PAST behavior.

-Jim+

Is the call to be a lifelong and continuing disciple of Jesus Christ anywhere in the resolutions or is that not even a footnote?

I particularly “enjoyed” C041 about marriage between two adults as being intended if it’s God’s will for the procreation of children. They don’t explain how that happens, unless they wish to include another resolution about the blessing of in vitro fertlization so that “Eve and Genevieve” can have a baby or hat “Steve can go against his nature and shack up with “Genevieve” for a few nights” so that they can be a little family-Eve, Steve and Genevieve-even though the daddy doesn’t live with the two mommies.

What happened to procreation between two married people (married to each other) of the opposite gender? Too passe, I guess.

in the beginning the “Adult in the sky”(TM) made them 2 adults

No-charge dissertation idea for a sociology major:

How Cults Die:

Dynamics as cult groups turn self-destructive: overt corporate and individual suicide (Jonestown) compared to less overt, but equally deadly corporate suicide (The Episcopal Church).

I am shocked!!! and horrified!!! at the discrimination evident in C041:

“Matrimony is a physical and spiritual union of ….. two adults, entered into within the community of faith, by mutual consent of heart, mind, and will, and with intent that it be lifelong”

How dare this inclusive church limit committed relationships to just two parties? And why is the term “adult” necessary; are the youth in churches to be denied equal access to matrimony? Are they not deemed to be full members by virtue of their baptismal covenant(TM)?

But most of all, the notion that there is to be a “lifelong” commitment is ridiculous. As many clergy (a certain California bishop New England bishop come to mind) have shown by their stellar examples, matrimony is merely a phase (sometimes brief) in living into one’s spiritual journey. Shame, shame, shame for these arbitrary, bigoted, and “Neanderthal” restrictions.

*******************************

At least those “shacking up” or involved in adulterous relationships don’t have to worry about not qualifying for ordination, per C039:

“No person shall be denied access to the discernment process for any ministry, lay or ordained ……. because of ……… sex, marital status, sexual orientation”

Per that clause, not being married but living together is not an impediment, since it’s purely concerned with marital status; and similarly, someone who is married cannot be limited to sexual relations with only their spouse since they would be allowed to have sex with any number of partners (simultaneously or consecutively) if *not* married.

*******************************

It’s also interesting that in C056, there’s this:

“Resolved, That, with respect to such blessings, no bishop or clergy of this Church or any other person acting on behalf of this Church shall be required or expected to perform an act contrary to a deeply-held position of conscience.”

So although the clergy don’t have to perform blessings, parishioners who hold those same deeply-held positions of conscience have to accept the blessings as being legitimate.

ps - please people, remember that I am known for sarcasm/satire……….

That’s not a blitzkrieg. It’s a carpet-bombing.

Thank you, Jim McNeely, for the “almost” in your message. I actually think there are many conservative types left in TEC, especially in rural areas where there are few denominational alternatives and NO practical ability to sustain an ACNA church plant.

The silence of the CP bishops and clergy is deafening. Perhaps they finally realized how screwed over they are. Or are they still living in a fantasy world?

Christopher Johnson asks: “What will the CP bishops do when the radical agenda is shoved down their throats? Will they finally realize what most of the rest of us figured out a long time ago, that this sick fraud of a “church” cannot be salvaged and it’s a waste of time to continue to try? Or will they temporize, issue a position paper or two and otherwise do nothing?”

Well, they did issue a statement on the polity of The Episcopal Church. And there are rectors who are supporting these CP bishops.

Question: Could Greg Griffith and “Senior Priest” have signed the Rector’s Declaration of Support? If so, did they?

Also, Greg Griffith wrote a blog post about “TEc Stayers: Lessons from the Sixth Passenger.”

Quite simply, this analogy which Greg uses is about helping people get out of a sinking airplane that’s already crashed. The most elementary question then becomes “Are TEc stayers actively helping people get out of TEc?” And into another church, be it the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, ACNA, a Continuing Church, or any other conservative Protestant denominination?

Are they doing this? I don’t think so.

My estimation is that Greg’s post and all the other Institutionalist-Enablers who jumped on-board his post are using it as self-serving rationale. At best, and it’s a fairly weak “best”, I think that any mild positive contribution by these Institutionalist-Enablers is to journalistically report the heresy and apostasy that’s going on in TEc. My rebuttal to that is to ask whether one needs to really be a member of TEc to do that. GG fancies that Genpo’s derailed nomination is due to internet publicity, largely SFIF’s efforts. That may very well be.

If so, then own up to the fact that the Institutionalist-Enablers are trying to reform TEc. Yet, this is something that even Sarah Hey says that she’s not doing.

Is there any argument from Scripture or from church history to support the rationale of staying in an apostate church to help others get out of the apostate Church, and to also prevent others from joining this apostate Church (which is an inversion of the Great Commission)?

As someone my ex has often described as “barely civilized,” I urge the adoption of a resolution by the 76th GenCon apologizing to all cavemen for those horrid Geico commercials depicting us as brutes. I know, I know, the Episcopos didn’t make those commmercials, but I thought as long as they’re in an apolgizin’ mood, they might want to cover this base also. A resolution approving blessings for same-sex caveman couples will probably have to wait for the 77th GenCon, I suppose.

Why not a blessing for cohabitation, if it comes to that? Why should Jack and Jill have to fork out the fees for a registry office just for a piece of paper? After all, many good people are living together and even having children without feeling the necessity for the mere legal formality of a civil marriage ceremony!

Seriously, why not?

I’ll grant there are just “weeks left for moderates” but I agree with the other posters who say there are no conservatives left. The only caveat is that there may be a small number of fairly conservative parishioners (but not “many” as per Anglicat’s belief); but there are no conservative clergy, only moderates.

I think it’s a sad phenomenon that folks think of themselves as “conservative” simply because they are always “to the right” of the ilk who write the above resolutions. Faithful Christians would not be “OK” remaining in bed with an organization whose clergy and lay leaders freely and consistently promote with words and actions, the disdain for biblical and traditional authority reflected in the above resolutions.

Per G Griffith, the plane has already crashed. Likewise, the Episco-Titanic has already gone underwater and descends apace. The only thing left to do, is rescue the few live souls trapped in air pockets here or there before it gets too deep for even deep-sea rescue. These cries, “let the air-pocket living remain where they are, as a witness” and “don’t insult anyone by saying they need to be elsewhere (namely, above water)” –these cries are not merely enabling the heretics, they are abetting the spiritual manslaughter of the few who are still alive.

substitute the words “two persons”

That’s discriminatory: apparently there is an amendment proposed to rephrase this as two or more persons, animals, or animate or inanimate objects

Passage of any one of these should indicate that the Episcopalians are going to do whatever the hell they feel

No you don’t get it. Passage is not important. There mere fact that such heretical, pedophillial, frankly evil resolutions can even be proposed is more than enough evidence that ECUSA is dead and gone and has been for years.

The time left in the Episcopal Organization for conservatives or even moderates can be measured in weeks.

Time “left” has been over for years, Chris, years and years and years. And yes, even the likes of Sarah Hey, when she is thrown into the lake of fire with a millstone around her neck and crys out “why! why!” - Our Lord will reply: because you remained in TEC, and lured many children to damnation

If you believe in Christ you cannot remain a member of TEC. Just as if you believe in Christ you cannot remain a member of the KKK, of the Nazi party, of Al-Qaida, or many other organisations. You cannot remain in TEC, and be saved: and by staying you are responsible for the damnation of many. And for that, Christ in the Gospels is quite clear: there can be no forgiveness and no mercy.

“Well, they did issue a statement on the polity of The Episcopal Church. And there are rectors who are supporting these CP bishops.”

That’s like the Jews in Auschwitz stopping to issue a statement on their way to the showers.

When I was ordained in the early 80’s, the renewal movement was in full flower - Cursillo, Faith Alive, charismatic renewal, etc. I grew up an evangelical, and I found in the liturgy (esp the ‘28) a wonderful way to worship the Lord whom I loved. There were many other evangelicals coming into the Episcopal Church, and many Episcopalians who through the renewal movement had met the living Christ and who now understood what the Bible and the prayer book were talking about.

Our hope was that we could turn the Episcopal Church around. however, even though the renewal movement was having a good effect, and even though TESM was founded and Episcopal missionary organizations were being established - most of the seminaries were turning out heretics by the boatload. Cursillo was co-opted in many areas (Susan Russell is a cursillista!). What we are seeing now is the unfolding of what was taught in the 70’s and 80’s - and what is being taught now in seminary will bring even worse.

We had hoped to restore the Episcopal Church to biblical faith. Clearly, that has not happened. Looking back, I think that God was sending a team of firemen into a burning building to rescue as many as possible. I am thankful for those whom I have helped to come to a saving knowledge of Christ over the last quarter of a century.

But the ceiling is collapsing and I am getting out. I retire (early) in a few months. I do not want to be engulfed as the flames continue to destroy the building. Other “firemen” in other areas of the building may have some more time before the ceiling comes down on them. These resolutions (many of which I expect to be combined, and to pass) are a sign that the entire building is about to become nothing but a pile of twisted beams.

Satan is laughing at the deathtrap he has made of a formerly Christian Church. These resolutions show how deeply the delusions have become part of the core of our leadership. It is ghastly and horrifying.

Dusty,

I had much the same experience as you in the 70s (would that I were about to retire!); though our local area already had solid pockets of ortodoxy, we recognized the “mixed bag” nature of diocesan theology. At one point, we truly believed ECUSA was positioned to be “The American Church”.

Two factors defeated us: a theological weakness in our own ranks. Some charismatics and evangelicals, like most new Christians, were barely-converted pagans who loved the culture as much as any Episcopal bishop. Some of us simply stayed theological children. Second, there is an ecclesial weakness in Anglicanism best expressed by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus: when orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy is eventually proscribed.

On the bright side, these are simply resolutions filed in advance of the triennial organizational circle jerk called General Convention. One might find countering resolutions filed by the few pockets of Christianity left in TEC. The difference is that the lesbi-gays will make some progress, and may get the whole pie this time. though that’s more likely in ‘12 or ‘15).

Dusty, God bless you for your love and ministry. May you continue to bear fruit in your retirement. I’ve pretty much given up on all clergy who have been willing to stay associated with TEC, but you prove me wrong where my verbiage does not allow for exceptions.

Of course you were not really one who was content to stay and/or justify “staying the course.” Pax.

And, of course, “the ax” was already “laid to the root,” Dusty, by the 1980s, what with the acceptance of WO in 1976, the struggle over which formed the template for all that has happened subsequently; and I think WO (like acceptance of DAR) itself was a slow, but (in the social circumstances) inevitable consequence of the 1930 Lambeth Conference’s acceptance of contraceptive practice, even in the face of earlier Lambeth Conference pronouncements on that subject. (A realization I owe, like so much else, to my conversations with Eric Mascall between 1978 and 1992.)

But, then, what else can one expect from a Christian tradition whose ecclesiological bedrock appears to be a fundamental Erastianism.

DAR = Divorce and Remarriage

In the face of these proposed resolutions, it is necessary to ask: Why would anyone who is not either a homosexual himself or so focused on the homosexual cause that it becomes the prism through which all activity is judged, even if he were not convinced of the sinfulness of homosexual relations and the sanctity of traditional marriage–why would such a person want to join a religious organization which seems to be able to think of nothing other than the advancement of this particular agenda?

In short, it is hard to see TEC as anything but “the gay church,” a religion only for homosexuals and adherents to their cause.

Sarah Hey: “But the fact is that The Burning Building is The Story that journalists want to cover and if there is only an underground fire that is not visible [ie, the most recent Primates Meeting] or if the escapees are off over in another part of the country rebuilding their lives after escaping The Burning Building, journalists aren’t going to find it interesting. Once one leaves The Story, one no longer matters [not in God’s eyes, of course, but in journalist’s and other’s eyes], and the people in The Story no longer care. That’s why it is so so important that the people who are still in The Burning Building speak with a loud voice—because people will hear you as relevant, as long as you are in The Burning Building. But once you’ve left The Burning Building, the reaction of people is the equivalent of “next?”.

That’s why I continue to distinguish between the roles of Stayers and Leavers. Leavers are setting about the onerous and challenging task of building Another Story, in a sense. Stayers are engaging in the challenging task of speaking in a loud voice about The Current Story, which is The Burning Building.

Doug, I actually think not. Not if you’re in a fireproof safe with good outside ventilation.

Not if the outside ventilation hose is connected to a source of pure air.

It’s an incredibly large safe—and furthermore we have many wonderful suits that we can wear to go out and survey the damage and even report on it. The suits feature great insulated fresh oxygen tanks and fire and heat-proof material.”

Contrast Sarah’s remarks with the following….

Alfonso: “These cries, “let the air-pocket living remain where they are, as a witness” and “don’t insult anyone by saying they need to be elsewhere (namely, above water)” – these cries are not merely enabling the heretics, they are abetting the spiritual manslaughter of the few who are still alive.”

Sinner intones: “And yes, even the likes of Sarah Hey, when she is thrown into the lake of fire with a millstone around her neck and crys out “why! why!” - Our Lord will reply: because you remained in TEC, and lured many children to damnation.”

I hope that this will be a line drawn in the sand and painted with red paint so that the CP partners see that there is no hope for TEC as they accelerate down an ever ’steepening’ slope away from the gospel.

Well, one feature of the “rainbow-colored church” must come from purported “conservatives” drawing “lines in the sand” and then ignoring it when their opponents vaulted over them, often with ease. Perhaps these “conservatives” liked harlequinade colors; the result certainly is a harlequinade “church.”

Three things:

1 - I thought the Hegelians (TEC left) taught us it wasn’t all about sex.

2 - Communion Partners plan unfortunately is an abject failure.

3 - Stayers now plainly have only one option before them, if they decide to hold on and stay - martyrdom (of the institutional, not literal, variety).

TEC would have to turn itself into the Church of “No” to vote down enough of these resolutions in order to retain even a semblance of respect from South Anglicans. Not very likely.

Thanks for highlighting this Chris. It strikes me that several thousand people will be taking time off from work or using vacation time, plus paying for airfare, hotels, meals, etc., all so that they can spend two solid weeks talking about this stuff as if it were actually important to people’s faith or everyday lives. All so they can soothe the consciences of a very, very small group of people. Think about how truly bizarre that is.

You have all said it so well, I have nothing to offer. This is just more evidence of the determination of the leading elite in TEC to run joyously and without abandon over the cliff and into the abyss.

Anyone silly enough to stay with them in that journey is to be pitied.

Allen Lewis: “Anyone silly enough to stay with them in that journey is to be pitied.”

Sorry, I actually don’t pity the Institutionalist-Enablers who have their eyes wide open to the soul-destroying heresy and apostasy that’s entrenched in TEc.

Athansius Returns:

1.) They lied
2.) Ultimately, without a doubt
3.) Actually, those remaining face a far worse fate: erosion of their faith by the drip-drip-drip of heresy.

John Edwards - you apprehend the situation correctly.

The Deaf for $200 please, Alex Chris.

“What will the CP bishops do when the radical agenda is shoved down their throats.”

I know, I know. Yes, yes, in the form of a question. What is Nothing?

The Dumb for $400 please, Chris.

“Will they finally realize what most of the rest of us figured out a long time ago, that this sick fraud of a “church” cannot be salvaged and it’s a waste of time to continue to try.”

Um, What is No?

The Blind for $600 please, Chris.

…[W]ill they temporize, issue a position paper or two and otherwise do nothing?

What is Yes?!

What else do I win Alex Chris?

Oh yea, a decimated church. Never Mind.

CJ asks: “What will the CP bishops do when the radical agenda is shoved down their throats?”

At the ACC level the ACI architect of CP and anxious promoter of the Covenant Design Group Christopher Seitz is excreting bricks.

“Friends–continue to pray. Resolution A was defeated by a wide margin. It now appears we are revisiting that in some very confusing process of voting on amendments to B/C, and the possibility of losing the plot is great. Prayers for +Mouneer and his leadership, as well as Stanley Isaacs and others. If the majority that defeated A remains unconfused and focused–no easy thing given all the complex rules–then the ensuing resolutions might also be turned back and the Covenant unimpaired. It is not as though the CDG did not already go through things like this/weigh things now being weighed, in its own work. It appeared the ABC stood to defend that logic, and then things got into rules of order.”

Seitz: “the possibility of losing the plot is great”.

Oh, major woe.

P.S. Love his use of the word “plot”. Is it a Freudian slip? Remember how his e-mails got leaked and the revisionists shrieked that he was plotting behind the scenes? The revisionists must be laughing their heads offs when they read Seitz is worried about the possibility of his plot losing.

The Seitz quote in my previous quote was the 1st comment on this thread:

http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/22471/#361972

BabyBlue has a wonderful post on the goings on at ACC. Here’s an excerpt:

“Kearon says they are not being unfaithful to the Communion. Section IV is going to a working group.

It’s so over. If it goes to a working group, The Covenant is finished.

Chris is asking why the people were taken by surprised - so basically what I hear Kearon saying is that the Joint Standing Committee ejected the Anglican Covenant Design Group’s resolution and rewrote it to fit the TEC agenda.

So there was confusion. [Which] was on purpose. I’ve seen that done so many times at General Convention.

And Schori is smiling because she now has full control over the language and process of the Anglican Covenant. What a trick.”

Can you picture Seitz and Radner with both hands jammed in their mouths with a big-eye look of utter horror and devastation?

My abdominals are getting a good workout.

BabyBlue has a wonderful post on the goings on at ACC. Here’s an excerpt:

“Kearon says they are not being unfaithful to the Communion. Section IV is going to a working group.

It’s so over. If it goes to a working group, The Covenant is finished.

Chris is asking why the people were taken by surprised - so basically what I hear Kearon saying is that the Joint Standing Committee ejected the Anglican Covenant Design Group’s resolution and rewrote it to fit the TEC agenda.

So there was confusion. [Which] was on purpose. I’ve seen that done so many times at General Convention.

And Schori is smiling because she now has full control over the language and process of the Anglican Covenant. What a trick.”

Can you picture Seitz and Radner with both hands jammed in their mouths with a big-eye look of utter horror and devastation?

My abdominals are getting a good workout.

When the Chosen People were led out of slavery from Egypt, I don’t recall anything in Exodus which said that some remained behind to “witness” to the sins of Pharoh. In Revelation, when a “voice from heaven” said, referring to Babylon, “Depart from her, my people, so as not to partake in her sins,” there is no following line where the “voice from heaven” said, Except for some of you who need to stay and “witness” to her sins.” In 2nd Corinthians, when St. Paul said, “Do not be yoked with those who are different, with unbelievers. For what partnership do righteousness and lawlessness have…or a believer in commmon with an unbeliever,” St. Paul did not add that some believers should remain yoked with unbelievers in order to “witness” to their unbelief. My question is where in Scripture, if at all, can be found any support for this rather bizarre theory that Christians should remain with apostates and unbelivers in order to perform this “witnessing” to their apostasies and lack of faith? Isn’t separation what God intends for believers?

Well as TUAD says: it’s over

Orombi is shown to have been very prescient in continuing his boycott of the ACC and indeed all the institutions of the communion. He made the right choice, the rest of the GAFCON delegations tried their best but were defeated and destroyed by the ABC, ECUSA, and the other white delegations.

In any other institution, Shori would call this blatant racism.
In this case, she’d be right.

The only good news is that GAFCON stands ready and waiting. It has its covenant: the Jerusalem declaration - nothing more is needed. It has its primates meeting, standing committee, and global conference. It has all the institutions ready to go to be a new communion.

All that is required is one thing: a statement from the GAFCON standing committee, that, as of say the end of the year, they will no longer be in communion with any province that has not a) acceded to the Jerusalem declaration, and b) established effective enforcement measures into its canons where they do not already exist.

I’ve heard a rumor that at least one, if not two, GS delegations will not be returning for the rest of the ACC - and that such a statement will be out from the GS within the next couple of weeks.

Folks, it’s finally happening!

Stephen Noll has an excellent analysis of what just transpired at the Anglican Consultative Council. Excerpts:

“The Anglican Communion Covenant is Dead [Cry me a river, Radner and Seitz and all other Institutionalist-Enablers].

Perfidious Albion

That moment when Rowan Williams bestirred himself to suggest that there might be a majority opposed to passing the Ridley Text as presented will be remembered as a decisive moment of fulfillment of his prediction of the collapse of the Anglican Communion as we have known it.

But at the end of the day, Rowan Williams failed to lead, or more likely, chose to lead the Communion into pandemonium.

Perfidious Albion! The Covenant was his baby. Why did he kill it in the cradle? Why did he betray the Archbishop of the West Indies and the Archbishop of Southeast Asia? [Cry me a river Radner, Seitz, Gomez, and all other Institutionalist-Enablers].

Here another factor comes into play: Williams’s centralizing of power in one Instrument, himself! This gathering of power to himself began by his repudiation of the Dar es Salaam Primates’ meeting, by various attempts to put the Primates in their place, by treating the GAFCON movement as if it did not exist, and by turning to the more manipulable ACC and JSC as his councils of choice. The final act of aggrandizement has now come with referral of the Covenant to a totally unauthorized “small group” who will report to another non-Instrument, the Joint Standing Committee of Primates and ACC.

I imagine this reality poses a dilemma for those who have faithfully supported Archbishop Williams over the past six years. [Ya think?] Those who believe that loyalty is owed to “Canterbury” as an historic see, not a person, will have to take a very long view of the Anglican future, and many may decide that there are sees more historic than that founded by Augustine in 597. For others like myself and those who signed the GAFCON statement, Canterbury can no longer be a realistic focus for our Anglican identity.”

———

My surprise is seeing the surprise registered by “conservatives” over what just transpired at the ACC in Jamaica. The liberal apostates and their prime enabler, +++Rowan Williams, behaved exactly as I expected. Archbishop Orombi saw the farce coming and declined to attend. He knew. Anybody with half a brain knew what was coming. And will continue to come. And Christopher Johnson nailed it with the title of this post: Blitzkrieg!

So let’s just keep heaping praise upon ACI’s Radner and Seitz and the Communion Partner Bishops and Rectors and all the other TEc Institutionalist-Enablers of soul-destroying heresy and apostasy for deliberately choosing to stay in TEc, and through that deliberate choice, influencing others to join or remain in heretical, apostate TEc. Way to go Institutionalist-Enablers!!!

Well, I don’t know about “cry me a river,” but Seitz is throwing the most amazing temper tantrum/pouting session on the thread here:

http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/22480/#comments

blaming much of it on the Ugandans and on their Abp. Orombi not showing up for this meeting.

[...] I could do.”   UPDATE: RomeAnglican points out something important.  While a great many of the resolutions up for a vote in July explicitly call for the repeal of B033, passage of a great many others would effectively [...]