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October 28, 2004
A Voice Crying In The Wilderness
From Nigeria's Primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, released on Tuesday, October 19, 2004:
I welcome the sincerity and hard work of those who have prepared 'The Windsor Report 2004.' After an initial reading it is clear to me that the report falls far short of the prescription needed for this current crisis. It fails to confront the reality that a small, economically privileged group of people has sought to subvert the Christian faith and impose their new and false doctrine on the wider community of faithful believers. We have watched in sadness as sisters and brothers who have sought to maintain their allegiance to the "faith once delivered to the saints" have been marginalized and persecuted for their faith. We have been filled with grief as we have witnessed the decline of the North American Church that was once filled with missionary zeal and yet now seems determined to bury itself in a deadly embrace with the spirit of the age. Instead of a clear call for repentance we have been offered warm words of sentimentality for those who have shown no godly sorrow for their actions and harsh words of condemnation for those who have reached out a helping hand to friends in need of pastoral and spiritual care.Why, throughout the document, is there such a marked contrast between the language used against those who are subverting the faith and that used against those of us, from the Global South, who are trying to bring the church back to the Bible? Where are the expressions of deep concern for the men and women whose witness is jeopardized and whose lives are at risk because of the actions of ECUSA? Where are the words of "deep regret" for the impact of ECUSA's actions upon the Global South and our missionary efforts? Where is the language of rebuke for those who are promoting sexual sins as holy and acceptable behaviour? The imbalance is bewildering. It is wrong to use equal language for unequal actions.
The report correctly notes that the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of New Westminster have pushed the Anglican Communion to the breaking point. It rightly states that they did not listen to the clear voices of the Communion and rejected the counsel of all four Instruments of Unity. Therefore it is surprising that the primary recommendation of the report is "greater sensitivity" instead of heartfelt repentance. Already the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA has stated that he sees no need to halt welcoming practising homosexuals into all orders of ministry! In addition, the bishop of New Westminster has indicated that same sex
blessing will continue. Thus they are hell bent on destroying the fabric of our common life and we are told to sit and wait.The Bible says that two cannot walk together unless they are agreed. The report rightly observes that if the "call to halt" is ignored "then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart". The Episcopal Church and Diocese of New Westminster are already walking alone on this and if they do not repent and return to the fold, they will find that they are all alone. They will have broken the Anglican Communion.
I am disappointed that an important report that was requested by the Primates who gathered at Lambeth Palace last October was not submitted to us for prayerful consideration. Instead it has been released to the entire world as if it were the final word on this troubling matter. However, before the next meeting of the Primates in February, I will now take it to the All Africa Bishops Conference that will gather in Lagos from October 26th-31st and we will have further opportunity to speak of the crisis created by the North American Church.
We commend the future of our Communion to the hands of almighty God and
the prayers of all.+ Peter Akinola
The Most Rev. Peter Akinola Primate of All Nigeria and Chairman of the
Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa.Posted by frleo at 6:53 PM
October 25, 2004
Invitation to the Eternal Banquet
The Bible often refers to salvation as a banquet, a banquet associated with God’s final victory. Invitation to the eternal banquet: the significance of this message is for their time as well as for all times.
For Jesus’ times: The first invited guests are the people of Israel. The servants who went out with invitation are the prophets. Ages ago, the Israelites accepted to be His chosen people. But they changed their heart. One went to the farm, the other went to attend his business. They were both not bad things in themselves. But the reason for the king being so upset with them is the insult they brought upon rejecting his invitation after having accepted it. To accept the invitation and turn it down was serious, because the king sending the invitation is God the Father. The reason for the party is the union of God with humankind in the person of Jesus.
For all times: We have accepted the invitation and commitment to God’s salvation plan in our baptism and confirmation. It is not a one-time deal to don a baptismal cloak. The robe of righteousness needs to shine on. Our yes to the Lord is not a momentary or a temporary one. Our commitment to God must grow too. If not it will atrophy and die.
The wedding garment expected of us is a personal commitment required in order to take our place at the feast. The Holy Eucharist is the eternal banquet left by Jesus as a memorial of His passion, death and resurrection until His coming again. Jesus said, “I will not drink this cup until the very day when I drink it new with you in my father’s kingdom” (Mt 26:29). Let us feed on Him with faith and thanksgiving, until His second coming.
Posted by frleo at 7:23 PM
Fall Planting Day at St. Gabriel's
Attention Congregation Members:
This Saturday, October 30th will be our first annual Fall Planting Day at St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church. All congregation members are invited to make a donation ($25.00 or so) to purchase shrubs, flowers and other foliage.
Everyone is also encouraged to join us in fellowship this Saturday at 9:00 a.m. Bring your tools and help us beautify the grounds of our church. Lunch will be served, and a good time will be had by all! If you need additional information, please contact Fr. Leo.
SEE YOU SATURDAY!!
Posted by frleo at 9:05 AM
October 23, 2004
Adult Education Special Session
I have placed the following announcement in the local newspapers. Please bring along an ECUSA friend to this week's Sunday School.
St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church, Springdale, a traditional orthodox Episcopal church family, following the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, will hold a special session, "Windsor Report, What Next?" at this week's Adult Anglican Education class, 9:00 a.m., Sunday at St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church. All are welcome. The discussion will be based on the Lambeth Commission on Communion, The Windsor Report 2004, published this week. This report gives the Anglican communion's stand on the homosexual issue that has rocked the Episcopal Church. We will review this report in terms of its orthodoxy and its relevance based on Scripture, Tradition and Reason. All those in search of traditional, sacramental, and liturgical worship are also welcome to attend the Holy Eucharist at 10:00 a.m., following the Anglican Education class.
God Bless, and I hope to see you all tomorrow at Sunday School and Holy Eucharist.
Posted by frleo at 5:33 PM
October 19, 2004
On the Windsor Report
I received a call from the Arkansas Democratic Gazette on my thoughts on the Windsor Report. The following is my response.
The Windsor Report comes as a slap on the face for those conveniently undermining the authority of Scripture in order to suit their agendas. The report falls back on the foundation of Anglicanism, Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and Reflected Reasoning. The Windsor Report has not only reprimanded the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA), but also has asked ECUSA to openly express its regret and put a moratorium on the election of homosexual candidates for the orders and the Rite of Blessing of same-sex unions. Consecrators of Gene Robinson are invited to consider in conscience their withdrawal from representative functions within Anglican Communion.
St. Gabriel's national church, The United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA) realized ECUSA's departure from the faith 25 years ago, when ECUSA began tampering with the Book of Common Prayer and rewrote its theology and liturgy in the form of 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Regarding the article, “What Next” in the Arkansas Democratic Gazette, I responded in a previous post:
Exclusive claims of compassion to the detriment of morality and time-honored traditional family values, need careful consideration. Approving what is Biblically incorrect in order to make people feel comfortable requires a lot of soul searching. The Church, as an institution and guardian of faith and morals, needs to be be compassionate while also being forthright and continuing to do its duty.
The Windsor Report references Scripture as the source of authority, and it demands the rationale of homosexuality in terms of Scripture. Bishop Gene Robinson, during his recent visit to St. Mark’s Cathedral in Minneapolis, was quoted in Christian Challenge (August/September 2004) as saying, "We do not worship a God who got locked up in Scripture 2000 years ago." Gene Robinson stands diametrically opposed to the directive of the Windsor Report, which re-emphasizes the authority of Scripture and “bishops as teachers of the scripture” (see para. 58).
While clamping down on ECUSA, the Diocese of New Westminster and the Canadian Church for their stance on homosexuality, the report reiterates that such a stand is detrimental to the communion or the Instruments of Unity. Therefore, it puts moratorium on the election of any candidate who lives in same sex union to the orders, restricts the jurisdiction of the New Hampshire See in terms of acceptability of the candidate in other provinces and urges ECUSA to express regret over the breach of bond of communion surrounding the election and consecration of a bishop for New Hampshire (see para. 134) .
In terms of Inculturation, the report recommends rooting of the faith in one’s culture. The report’s emphasis on Pauline example is compelling evidence against the stand of the ECUSA:
In Paul’s world, many cultures prided themselves on such things as anger and violence on the one hand and sexual profligacy on the other, Paul insists that both of these are ruled out for those "in Christ."
The Windsor Report recommends that both the principles of adiophora (in terms of the importance of issue at hand -- para. 87) and subsidiary (in terms of the handling of issues at a local level -- para. 94) be maintained while observing the dictum, "the clearer it is something indifferent in terms of Church’s central doctrine and ethics, the closer to the local level it can be decided." The decision on such a serious matter, in other words, should have been decided within the communion and not unilaterally by ECUSA.
Regrettably for ECUSA, sanctions had to come from without, whereas in truth, ECUSA could have introspected itself in terms of the great Anglican foundation of Scripture, Tradition and Reason. Everything is well said except for the factor of “acceptability” of this issue by the rest of the communion "until new consensus emerges." This is a cause for concern. In the issue of women’s ordination, the Anglican Communion bypassed apostolic tradition in passing it by consensus, and what began as an individual practice came to be a consensus in terms of acceptability (see "Recent mutual discernment within the communion" para. 12-16). Such precedence only speaks of the potency of similar approval for the homosexual issue as well.
Conversely, the position of UECNA in both the issues of women’s ordination and homosexuality has been orthodox. Therefore, UECNA maintains its role of safeguarding the tradition, namely male candidacy to ordination and the sanctity of heterosexual union and family based on Scripture and Tradition.
After apparent reprimand, the Windsor Report also admits the fact that ECUSA may or may not comply with the recommendations of the Communion/Instruments of Union. “Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart” (para. 157).
Whither will go the Episcopal Church USA? Will they go it alone or will they go with the flow of Anglicanism?
Posted by frleo at 5:23 PM
October 12, 2004
What's Next? Compassion or Compromise?
This is in reference to the story “What Next,” in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (click here to read the full article), evaluating the impact of Gene Robinson’s bishopric on ECUSA and other churches. Our church pondered over this article, and I wish to clarify the aspect of "compassion" quoted by ECUSA.
"Compassion" is not the exclusive claim of ECUSA alone. Most churches are naturally loving and compassionate. Being compassionate after the heart of Christ and reaching out to everyone is indeed Christian and not solely Episcopalian by any means. However, a distinction needs to be made between compassion and compromise -- between reaching out to people versus subscribing and promoting what is incorrect Biblically. The paradigm is given by our Lord in the instance of the woman caught in adultery standing before her accusers who wished her dead. Jesus said “Has no one condemned you? Neither do I,” but He also instructed her to “Go and sin no more.”
With Christ's compassion came the duty to correct her wrong ways. Jesus did not patronize adultery as the modern "champions of compassion" do in the context of homosexuality and other issues. In Christian parlance, there needs to be a dividing line between what is sin and what is grace. It would be a disgrace to accord sin the status of grace.
Exclusive claims of compassion to the detriment of morality and time-honored traditional family values, need careful consideration. Approving what is Biblically incorrect in order to make people feel comfortable requires a lot of soul searching. The Church, as an institution and guardian of faith and morals, needs to be be compassionate while also being forthright and continuing to do its duty.
Posted by frleo at 10:50 AM
October 7, 2004
Episcopalians: More Catholic Than Catholics
This morning we learned that Marge Parhurst was at the Boozman Clinic in Rogers for post-operative care and check-up, along with Gena her friend. Marge is doing well after her second cataract surgery on her right eye. Please pray for her.
As it was Marge's turn to meet the doctor she went with a nurse, while a couple came by me and said: "Are you a priest?" (Of course I was with in my clergyman's dress). I said "Yes I am. I am an Episcopalian Priest" "Are you from India?" "Yes I am." "Oh, we have a priest from India too as our pastor, and he is great story teller!" said Eileen. Thus began our conversation with Bill and Eileen. My wife, Holly also joined in.
The conversation ranged from the Pope to the difficulties of the Episcopalians, Baptists etc. While speaking of the Roman Catholic Church with a few of their priests abusing children, Bill said, "My father and grandfather would turn in their grave at the fact of the pedophile priests." He went on to add that Episcopalians "are more catholic than the Catholics." He has a friend who is so devoted to the Episcopal Church.
What impressed me is the simple faith these people have in human intermediaries, namely their priests. They expect so much of you as the custodian of faith and morals. But when that erodes, their whole world is shaken. Bill said that as a child he was told to abstain from meat on Fridays, but later as an adult he came to learn that it was the church's law in order to help out the fish market that was going down the tubes.
May God bless the people's faith in their pastors. May the pastors measure up to their expectations so that they may practice what they preach.
Posted by frleo at 2:01 PM
October 4, 2004
Seventeenth Sunday After Trinity
A contemporary hymn rephrases today’s epistle this way:
One Bread One Body One Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless.
And we, though many, throughout the earth,
we are one body in this one Lord:
Gentile or Jew, Servant or free, Woman or man, No more!“We are very members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ” We declare in the prayer of thanksgiving after Holy Communion.
The signs of bread and wine under which Jesus comes to us in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist signify this deeper meaning of unity. Many grains are ground to make the bread, and many grapes are crushed to make the wine. The fact that all of us partake of the same cup accentuates the unity and brotherhood within the body of Christ. It is imperative to speak of St. Ignatius who was appointed by St. Peter as Bishop of Antioch. He used this analogy even while he was being martyred for Christ as noted by St. Jerome, the great Biblical commentator:
When he was brought condemned to the theatre, and heard the roaring of the beasts which were to devour him, he felt a strong eagerness to suffer, even as he himself put on record: "I am Christ's wheat; let the teeth of wild beasts be my mill, that I may be ground up in such wise as to become good bread unto Christ."
We hear the same echoed by Paul, the apostle of Christ, to declare that all members of the Body of Christ have the right to the same dignity and honor of being a follower of Christ. Jesus counted everyone as another person in whom the fullness of God dwells.
In today’s gospel, Jesus takes the occasion of a dinner invitation and works the miracle for the man who had dropsy. Some people see today's gospel as Jesus teaching table etiquette and good manners in choosing seats when invited to a dinner. But when we try to read it through the eyes of the early Christians whose assembly was mainly to share in the feast of the Eucharist, we begin to see that there is much more than etiquette involved here. Jesus is teaching the basic Christian virtues of humility and solidarity with the poor, and he does this in two stages using two parables.
The first parable, on the One Invited to the Wedding Feast (verses 7-11), is addressed to Christians as those who are invited to the feast of the Lord's Supper. Irrespective of social status and importance, we come to the Eucharist as brothers and sisters of equal standing before God "Our Father." The Letter of James reports and condemns a situation where Christians "make distinctions" in the Christian assembly:
If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves? (James 2:2-4).
The second parable, on the One Giving a Great Dinner (verses 12-14), is addressed to Christians as those who invite others to the feast of the Lord's Supper.
When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (verses 12-13).
In this second part of his teaching Jesus goes beyond leveling out the distinctions and calls for preferential treatment of the poor and the disabled among us. Hence, there is no time nor hour when we cannot reach out to the other. As co-members of this body of Christ, we need to feel for the other: Laugh with others while they are happy, cry with others while they are sad.
Today’s miracle is proof that Jesus honors humanity more than the laws that are set to safeguard. Jesus reiterates His kingdom’s values once again: In His kingdom there will not be discrimination: a service rendered in humble submission to God’s holy will, will gain the greatest merit. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Lk 14:11)
Posted by frleo at 7:26 PM