The Revd Dr Peter Mullen has a point [here] : the instruments set up to ensure the 'mutual flourishing' of the warring factions of the Church of England can be a double-edged sword. Unredeemed human nature being what it is, even, one remarks ironically, in the Church, it seems to be an iron law that majorities, even those smugly ensconced in their own liberalism, will seek to ride roughshod over those who dare to challenge their view of the world.
Sir Philip Mawer's first report can be read here. The report contains some very good points, if at times it panders to the prevailing subjectivism of 'feelings' and perceived 'hurt.'
This time the safeguards have been effective, although I cannot be alone in thinking that the stated reasons for upholding 'orthodox' chrism masses somewhat undermine their essential purpose.
But traditional believers within the Church of England should not feel too vindicated or that their future is secured when there remain those whose very raison d'etre is the persecution and extinction of orthodoxy in all its manifestations. The only available Anglican alternative - the results of the triumph of contemporary liberal confusion - is all too visible among the beleaguered traditionalists across the Severn, to whose aid, their brothers and sisters in the Church of England, for reasons of the byzantine workings of Anglican Communion politics and the inevitable hierarchical bullying consequent upon them, seem, sadly - if understandably - so reluctant to come.
Given recent news, it's something of an irony that C.S. Lewis' Aslan was a lion ....
The problem with such nebulous yet culturally and politically loaded concepts as 'diversity' and 'equality,' of course, is that they mean precisely what their advocates want them to mean; for some, they clearly involve theological big game hunting. Make no mistake: the quarry is the God of the Catholic Creeds and of the Apostolic tradition.
This will be first, I suspect, of many "complaints" by WATCH. It does highlight the nonsenses of what has happened in the good old CoE. Fudge makers must be very proud. Joseph
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that the Catholic Creeds and the Apostolic Tradition are diminished by any division within the Church. We human beings inevitably bring division into a Church that by divine right is undivided. The prophetic way forward is seen in how we manage inevitable divisions with sacrificial love. What is it that the vocal minorities fail to understand in the ABC's invitation to disagree well? We disagree about the compass of the Apostolic Tradition? Fine. Let us disagree in love and let's recognise that we can be in communion with Christ even when we can't find our way to be fully in communion with each other. WATCH seems to have lost sight of the meaning of sacrificial love. They may feel that they have been sacrificial enough, but the sacrifice is never over for any of us until it is complete in Him. Platitudinous, maybe, but no less true for that!
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