The documents posted at the close of the recent Primates' Meeting in Dublin tell the story. The takeover of the Instruments of Communion by ECUSA, aided and abetted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is now complete. Anything of substance was carefully avoided at Lambeth 2008; the proposed Covenant itself was derailed at ACC-14 in Jamaica, and then carefully defanged by the newly reorganized Standing Committee; and now the Primates' Meeting has let itself descend into irrelevance -- with the primates of the churches having most of the Anglican Communion's membership absenting themselves, and refusing to prop up the pretense of normalcy any longer.AC observes:
There is not a word in any of the statements released from Dublin today about the commitment that ECUSA's House of Bishops was supposed to make, and which bishops such as +Bruno, +Shaw and the Presiding Bishop herself have so deliberately flouted ever since -- along with the General Convention of the whole Church. It is abundantly clear, based on the statements from Dublin, that the Primates who gathered there are not going to follow through with their commitments at Dromantine and Dar es Salaam. So ECUSA has prevailed, and will have its way.Charles Raven has written a considered and penetrating indictment entitled, Dublin and the Art of Dishonest Conversation
We might well ask ourselves what sort of Communion we are in when the chief passion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and those still willing to work with him is for ‘conversation’. Why this preoccupation with interminable and inward looking dialogue? What about a passion for reaching the lost, for faithful teaching and preaching, for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ? However sincere or even passionate the Primates may feel themselves to be, this is actually ‘dishonest conversation’ which displaces the gospel and is spiritually dangerous. Fundamentally, this is because ‘conversing’ has come to replace ‘confessing’. In my book ‘Shadow Gospel’ I demonstrate how Rowan Williams’ methodology amounts to a sophisticated redefinition of orthodoxy as a process of dialogue rather than faithfulness to a deposit of faith with its associated church order and morality.The faithful Anglican Primates who actually believe and obey the Scriptures and uphold the 39 Articles of the Church of England wisely and rightly absented themselves. I suspect as they continue to do so from future meetings chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, more and more Anglicans will come to realise that the split (for that is what it is) has been caused by another Reformation.
Lighting a candle for the absent Primates in Dublin will not keep the fire of God burning in the rump of the Anglican Communion, it merely expose the darkness at the heart of the structures. "Then the glory of the LORD departed from over the threshold of the temple." (Ezekiel 10:18)
The Pentecostal fire of the Holy Spirit is nevertheless burning bright elsewhere.
