Can we learn from history?

Aug 11, 2016 by

by Canon Phil Ashey, AAC:

Once upon the time there was a bishop—an Anglican bishop—who decided that you couldn’t trust the Bible. He claimed that the Bible was not clear about human sexuality and he rejected the Christian doctrine of marriage between one man and one woman. He wrote that the Bible was not historically trustworthy, and that we ought to prefer our own powers of reason and conscience to know God:

“…the living God, our Father and Friend, is nearer and closer to us than any book can be; that His voice within the heart may be heard continually by the obedient child that listens for it, and that shall be our teacher and guide in the path of duty, which is the path of life, when all other helpers — even the words of the best of books — may fail us.”

In other words, the Bible was among the best of books—one among many. But all those stories about miracles and “divine interventions” and the power of God to change us from the inside out—forget it. Instead, the Bishop began to commend the spiritual mansions one could find in other religions and their teachers.

Since the Bible was not trustworthy on the issue of marriage, the bishop began to openly question other things like the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of all, the reality of God’s judgment for unrepented sin, and more. As his views and teaching became known it caused great controversy within the Churches of the Anglican Communion.

Does this sound familiar?  It should.  But the Anglican Bishop I’m referring to is not from this century.  It’s not John Spong of the Diocese of Newark.  Nor is it Michael Ingham of New Westminster, Canada.

Read here

See also:

Could a parallel Anglican Communion be in the works? by David Virtue, VirtueOnline

 

African Churches urged not to be distracted by Western progressives, by Gavin Drake, ACNS [Readers might be interested to compare the sentiments of this speech by Dr Idowu-Fearon to an African audience, with some very different ideas expressed by the same speaker to the Synod in Canada, as summarized approximately halfway through this article ]

Where are we now? The aftermath of the January meeting of Primates, by Peter Jensen, GAFCON.

Archbishop of Canterbury making plans for another Primates meeting, by Ruth Gledhill, Christian Today

 

 

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