Latest Anglican News                                             Volume 2, Number 2, 8 February 2008

Where to start…?  The closest thing to an earth shattering happening in the past weeks has been the revelation yesterday of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s BBC radio broadcast in which he proposed the adoption of parts of Islamic Shariah law in Britain.  This drew fierce counter attacks from members of the British parliament, the government, from within the Anglican Communion (AC), from other Christian organizations in Britain and even from some Muslim clerics.  Strongly worded articles appeared in all the principal English news outlets today condemning his comments.  As the days go by be sure that this will occupy a large amount of time on the internet and in the press.

An excerpt from Investors Business Daily said, “Civilization took a low blow Thursday when a pillar of its values, the Archbishop of Canterbury, decided that Islamic law is now "unavoidable" in the U.K. as a matter of progress and tolerance. He's off the deep end.

In Rowan Williams' own mind, it all seemed so reasonable. "People may be surprised," he told the BBC… that Shariah law is inevitable, "but I hope that surprise will be modified when they think about the general question of how the law and religious community, religious principle are best and fruitfully accommodated." After all, wasn't it all happening anyway?”

One blogger wrote, “A rotten egg-head?  The shallowness of this rarefied academic's reasoning is profoundly disturbing for someone who is supposed to be a defender and upholder of the Christian Faith.  It is a gross misunderstanding of the religious realities and amounts, at worst, to self-inflicted 'suicide' in his relationship with African Christians (who are fighting fierce competition day in and day out with Muslim adherents.)  More ecclesiastical 'foot in mouth' disease.”

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Support for and comments against the GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem in June continue unabated.  To this point there have no further public announcements from those who conceived the meeting, nor are there any definitive details beyond the dates (15 – 22 June) and the location (Jerusalem). 

There has been talk of moving the meetings to Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an “after meeting” pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  An important issue surfaced when it was realized that those Bishops, clergy and laymen planning to attend from predominately Muslim countries cannot possibly obtain visas to enter Israel.

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One of most talked about documents in play in the discussion about schism in the AC is the so-called Anglican Covenant, originally called for in the Windsor Report of 2004, with the stated hope that it would permit the AC to stay in one piece.  It is being developed by a study group of the AC and is in draft form at this time.  If you are interested in reading this document, download the Acrobat PDF version at:

www.aco.org/commission/covennt/docs/st_andrews_documents_2008.pdf

The covenant itself is only 4½ pages even though with the introduction and comments section the entire document is 20 pages.  We encourage you to take the time to look it over.

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 For those CHC members proceeding through “the Bible in 90 days”, following are excerpts from a paper at the GAFCON website (www.gafcon.org), titled “Authority in the Church”.  It may be helpful to those stalwarts who have committed to this 90 day journey.  Although it is quite long, we encourage all to take the time to read the entire article.

As Luther had written so memorably, ‘the soul can do without anything except the word of God’.

A similar perspective can be found in the Book of Homilies. The very first of these model sermons contains one of the most memorable pieces of Anglican prose.

‘Let us diligently search for the well of life in the books of the New and Old Testament, and not run to the stinking puddles of men’s traditions, devised by man’s imaginations, for our justification and salvation. For in holy Scripture is fully contained what we ought to do, and what to eschew, what to believe, what to love, and what to look for at God’s hand at length.’

This homily is in fact a celebration of Scripture as a ‘precious gift of our heavenly father’ ‘the heavenly meat of our souls’ and ‘the words of everlasting life’. But it goes on to answer the suggestion that the Bible is too difficult to understand and that our ignorant reading may lead us into error rather than truth. In this context Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, credited with writing the first The Book of Common Prayer in the 1500’s, provides us with the closest thing to an official Anglican statement on how to read and understand the Bible.

‘And if you be afraid to fall into error by reading of Holy Scripture, I shall show you how you may read it without danger of error. Read it humbly with a meek and lowly heart, to the intent that you may glorify God, and not yourself, with the knowledge of it: and read it not without daily praying to God, that he would direct your reading to good effect; and take upon you to expound it no further than you can plainly understand it.  Presumption and arrogance is the mother of all error; and humility needeth to fear no error. For humility will only search to know the truth: it will search, and will bring together one place with another; and where it cannot find out the meaning, it will pray, it will ask of other that know, and will not presumptuously and rashly define any thing which it knoweth not. Therefore the humble man may search any truth boldly in the Scripture, and without any danger of error. And if he be ignorant (of the Bible), he ought the more to read and search Holy Scripture, to bring him out of ignorance.’

Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite as necessary to salvation…

From Article XX of the 39 Articles of Religion, ‘The Church has power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Although the Church be a witness and keeper of holy writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.”

 Written by the Reverand  Dr Mark Thompson, Academic Dean and Head of Theology, Moore Theological College, Sydney, Australia.

 Rudy Schenken, REC Lay Representative to Common Cause Partners