Five quick notes prefaced by some requests:
Requests: Please Read The Resolution. Do exegesis; not isogesis. Please resist the temptation to read your wishes and desires into the text.
1. The motion does not "affirm" the ACNA.
2. The motion does not "affirm" that the ACNA is part of the Anglican Communion.
3. The motion "affirms" a "desire" . Translation: Ohhh, how sweet that you want to be my boyfriend. I "affirm" your desire.
4. The motion does not refer to the ACNA as a whole but to the desire of "those who formed" the ACNA.
5. The motion does not affirm the desire of "those who formed the ACNA" to remain in "the Anglican Communion", but rather, it affirms their desire to remain a part of the Anglican "family". Arguably, anyone who prays with a prayerbook and wears a robe of some kind could be considered a member of the "Anglican Family".
Matt Kennedy at Stand Firm "gets it". I'd like to have responded at his website, but I am banned as a troll for a comment which I did not believe was offensive. Sarah Hey thought differently. I won't link to his post for the same reason.
I'd also have liked to comment to the very poignant post by Matt on the experience of his family moving out of their home. However the situation came about that the family had to move, I wished to express my sympathy at his site, but I could not.
Brother Matt may be capable of reading legislation, but if he still thinks that brocaded vestments and Elizabethan prayers make you "Anglican" then he has yet to understand what "Anglican" means.
ReplyDelete(And if Matt still thinks that "no pooftahs" is part of being Anglican he is mistaking us for the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolamaloo.)
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ReplyDeleteMimi,
ReplyDeleteI'm not skilled with words and exegesis type things, but a point of clarity needs to be added to your post. You state
"the family had to move"
I believe the phrase you wanted was "the family chose to move", as all they had to do to stay right where they were, preaching in the very same church and living in the very same house was to acknowledge the vows which they took when they were ordained.
I am not sympathetic at all. It's called "living with ambiguity". We do it all the time in the church. I'm not comfortable with everyone I meet in church, and that's okay. It's a big umbrella, and lots of folks, believing a range of "stuff" fit under it. We don't sign letters of belief.
So while it may have been tragic in the sense of a Shakespearean play, it was the youthful decision of people who to a great extent didn't "get" the message of Jesus, and who felt they had to leave to go to a purer church.
Arguably, you are correct, Paul (A.). :-) Many folks who insist on wearing the cloak of Anglicanism know little of the meaning of Anglicanism. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no law against calling oneself or one's group Anglican, however mistaken one's concept of the meaning of Anglicanism.
ReplyDeleteClumber, of course Matt's "family had to move" because of a choice, but nevertheless, his account tugged at my heartstrings, and I wished to express sympathy and godspeed. In many instances, perhaps too many, my heart rules my head. There it is.
ReplyDeleteClumber, one can think that Fr. Matt and Rev. Anne erred and still feel sorry for their kids, their congregation and for that matter their discomfort. Kids torn from a home are never the work of the love of Christ.
ReplyDeleteI also found their story of the congregation's response inspiring. We do not agree, but they are folks who try, albeit I think wrongly to live the Gospel. To dismiss them is a bit more than harsh.
FWIW
jimB
Matt and Anne paid a great price for their beliefs, which is one reason that I would never question their sincerity.
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago, when sympathy for poor, persecuted Don Armstrong was at fever pitch at SF, Kennedy advised the faithful to cool it and wait and see how things played out in the courts. Good advice, I thought.
ReplyDeleteI certainly admire them a lot more than some of our home grown Forward in Faith priests who are demanding 6 figure golden handshakes and permission to take their buildings and content with them when they join the Pope's Ordinariate.
ReplyDeleteErika, it's only fair to note that Matt and his congregation demanded the building, but the courts ruled against them.
ReplyDeleteNo sympathy here either. They chose to leave TEC. As my dad used to say, they buttered their bread - now they have to lie in it.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's also true that they tried to walk away with a large 6 figure endowment as well as the building. I would love to have a report from someone who knows what the search process was like that got them there, and what happened after they got there. They drove away a lot of people who couldn't take their leadership, no matter how courageous and earnest it was. How about sympathy for those folks?
ReplyDeleteI think sincerity is a bad "single issue" to decide how much sympathy to expend. Do we feel sorry for everyone who walks in and quits their job and subsequently looses their home, knowing full well the trauma that their family will have? We can all name a lot of sincere people who have made really really bad decisions.
And as to loosing the endowment and buildings, I believe NY had precedent in similar cases, and the issue was never really much in doubt about what was going to happen. So in essence, they made the decision, elected to roll the dice that the courts were going to decide differently for them, and then elected not to rent the buildings for a "transition period" to re-locate. How many bad decisions in a row will you allow them before your sympathy feels mis-placed? Yes, a shame for the children, but there were decision points all along this trail that could have prevented the "overnight move" that they were "forced" into.
The other church locally that left started out saying they were not going to engage the legal system (probably because it was a forgone conclusion that they would loose), and just left, without the newspaper and blog and TV news trail of tears.
Clumber, you're right in everything you say. Matt and Co. brought their troubles on themselves. But, my friend, you're not right to tell me for whom I should have sympathy. Jesus said we should love our enemies.
ReplyDeleteI can love them and have no sympathy for them, can't I? I don't for a moment wish that all of this had happened to them, but they have chosen to have it happen to them. It completes their martyrdom as True Christians. And they went to great pains to explain to us all about how the church had persecuted them for their beliefs. That was just nonsense. They could still be in those buildings today. Sorry Mimi. Precious little sympathy. And I'm not saying you can't feel any old way you want. Did I say you should feel as I do? If you had that impression, I apologize.
ReplyDeleteBut you made the false statement that they had to move, and it was clearly not true, except in the most generous of readings of the facts. You've a good heart Mimi - that's why we all love you. And I'm just an old dog... when this whole history unfolds sometime down the road and some of these churches return, I will be like the father of the prodigal son, waiting to throw a party and ask no questions. Hatred and bigotry can only be defeated with love.
Can you imagine an Episcopal district meeting where a group walks in and says "We are here to do spiritual warfare with you people who don't read the Bible the way we do"? I'm simplifying a but, but that was just about the statement made towards the people there. Okay, enough, Mimi. We can now part in peace. Have the last word. I'm done.