The Pyrrhic victories of liberal-catholicism in TEC
This year’s General Convention of the the Episcopal Church (TEC) has witnessed the victory of liberal-catholic theology over the teachings of the Bible. The convention voted to overthrow a moratorium on allowing gay bishops and to start preparing liturgies and theological resources for the blessing of same-sex partnerships and gay marriages. But what sort of victory is it? Looking at what is happening in TEC, it has all the hallmarks of a ‘Pyrrhic victory’, a victory that has come at devastating and ruinous cost.
Over 200 of its own clergy have already left TEC because it has walked away from the plain teaching of the Bible and traditional Christian doctrine, expressed in Anglicanism in the 39 Articles and 1662 BCP. Along with these clergy and many individual parishes, the bishops and dioceses of San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy, and Fort Worth are being litigated against because they are leaving the denomination in protest over TEC’s militant gay agenda. Millions of dollars are being spent by TEC in litigation and at this year’s convention over 4 million dollars has been set aside to pursue further litigation. Within TEC itself, 26 Bishops have since signed a minority report, repudiating the action of the General Convention. With many orthodox and conservative anglicans having already left TEC to form the Anglican Communion in North America (ACNA), and the numbers in TEC declining, the latest triumph of liberal-catholicism may yet prove to be fatal for its future survival.
Already, much of world anglicanism has officially through the GAFCON movement rejected the unrepentant TEC as a Christian entity. The ‘god’ worshipped by TEC is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Scriptures proclaim. Rather, it is a ‘god’ of their own canons, a ‘god’ fashioned in the image of their own secular society. Its latest pronouncements will do nothing to bring it back into the fold of mainstream anglicanism. By its victory, it has consigned itself to a stagnant backwater, spiritually unhealthy and dangerous to all who come near it.
The same intolerant, militant liberal-catholicism that has led to this in TEC is at work in the Church of Ireland. When these people look at the havoc caused by the actions of TEC, is that really the kind of future they want for the Church of Ireland? Are they prepared to ruin the Church of Ireland in their quest to get their own way? If they are, faithful anglicans within the Church of Ireland cannot afford to let them take our denomination in this direction and must work hard to ensure that Irish Anglicanism remains true to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.