Federal Way, Washington, Saturday, July 22, 2000. - ECUSA General
Convention 2000 found itself urging the Church to be nice to the Gay-Les lobby
by allowing diocesan choice in allowing homosexual "marriages" to be blest under
the authority of compliant bishops though refusing to accept proposals for
appropriate rites, at least at this time.
Further attempts at being nice allowed Lutherans (ELCA) to have
intercommunion with ECUSA without requiring Apostolic Succession and suspending
the Prayer Book Preface to the Ordinal which requires "Episcopal Consecration or
Ordination" for a valid ministry. These Lutherans also have inter-communion
agreements with the Congregationalists (UCC) which recognizes homosexual
marriages and has no requirements preventing practicing homosexuals from serving
as clergy.
However, Episcopalian niceness does not apply to the three dioceses (San
Joaquin, Fort Worth and Quincy) that refuse the ordination of women to Holy
Orders. Threats and fulminations to depose were made against the three bishops
(Ackerman, Iker and Schofield) who have dared to defy the requirement that they
surrender their quaint notions about Catholic tradition. A national task force
will monitor (and thus enforce) compliance by these three dioceses and their
bishops
The result of all this is that most of the traditionalist jurisdictions and
provinces of the Anglican Communion have threatened the break-up of the Anglican
Communion if ECUSA and other like-minded provinces continue to refuse to support
the teachings set forth in the recent Lambeth Conference and the more recent
OPORTO meeting of the primates.
The Singapore consecrations of Bishops Murphy and Rogers now challenge ECUSA
to return to Scriptural Authority in matters of marriage, morals and human
sexuality. What will FIF/NA, still loyal to ECUSA now do? However, the two
Singapore bishops either support or condone the ordination of women. Are
traditionalists within FIF/NA bold enough to form a new province and secede, if
need be from ECUSA? Will FIF/NA join with the traditionalist African and Asian
Primates?
In Denver on July 13th, Dr. Peter Toon wrote: "To preserve the possibility of
obeying the Great Commission, it may be necessary for the would-be orthodox to
secede from the ECUSA into a new province of the Anglican Communion. To do this
we would simply have to obey the WHOLE of the Great Commission."
The CEC will be represented at the meeting of FIF/NA in August in California.
Bishop Lindenauer will be Celebrant at the closing Eucharist of the meeting.
Pray for a good outcome for these things.