The General Convention (what we would call General Synod) of The Episcopal Church, USA, is meeting this week, and considered the following motion:
Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That this 76th General Convention of this church affirm the conclusion of the Church of England at its February General Synod and direct the House of Bishops’ Committee on Theology to report back to the 77th General Convention on “their understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in the United States multi-faith society, and offer examples and commendations of good practice in sharing the gospel of salvation through Christ alone with people of other faiths and of none.”
It did not pass. A motion affirming the cornerstone of what it means to be a Christian, did not pass. Lord have Mercy.
Update – A commenter asked if maybe it was defeated because people couldn’t figure out what it was saying. I suspect she was joking, but just in case – I did originally edit out the explanation of the motion:
EXPLANATION
Indicative of our support and appreciation for the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury at this General Convention and his leadership of the Church of England in Christian witness within the multi-faith culture of the United Kingdom, this resolution affirms that the Episcopal Church is in substantial agreement with the Church of England General Synod which directed its House of Bishops at their February 2009 meeting to report back on “their understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in Britain’s multi-faith society, and offer examples and commendations of good practice in sharing the gospel of salvation through Christ alone with people of other faiths and of none.”
This proves apostasy has no boundaries and it is worse than tragic to see the church losing – if it has not already lost – any claim to be a Christian church. It is true that Scripture says the gates of hell will not prevail against it. However, that promise does not apply to a church that willingly and deliberately denies the uniqueness of Christ and/or willingly approves and even seeks to bless activity that Scripture clearly calls sin. In the TEC and the ACoC we have apostate leadership that has come to believe they are superior to God and that God’s word is subject to their approval. The time has long since past for any orthodox members to call these apostates to account. We need to pray for their conversion and repentance.
You wouldn’t like it if the Islamic congress passed such a motion, or Jehovah’s Witnesses…..
Actually Islam, Judaism, Jehovah Witnesses are exclusionary.
And frankly, I wouldn’t care one way or another if they did – it would really be none of my business.
Maybe it didn’t pass because people couldn’t quite figure out what the resolution was saying.
Well, they did resolve to ban bottled water. I’m sure there’s a Biblical verse about that somewhere. . .
This is nothing short of a power struggle. TEC is basically telling ABC and CoE that TEC is charge, and everyone else had better get in line.
Simply put. TEC refuses to be told anything, but expects everyone else to follow them.
I just re read the motion. It wasn’t even afirming the uniqueness of Christ, it was asking the bishops to state plainly what they believe. It is even weaker than I thought at first reading, and still it was defeated.
[#7],
I think the power struggle aspect is partly true but I also think that the TEC bishops genuinely believe they are being “prophetic” and that the rest of the Anglican world will come around to their viewpoint eventually.
The same sentiments are expressed in Canada: a number of Canadian bishops have declared that they are being “prophetic” by proceeding with SSBs. I remember a number of years ago when Ralph Spence was bishop of Niagara, he declared confidently that this fuss would blow over and the recalcitrant fundamentalists would come to see things his way. Not sure whether he is still that confident.
And to respond to the question in the headline, the brief answer is “no”.