You recognize, I hope, that your declamation — that “One may only get to the Father through Jesus but there are penultimate ways to do that” — is itself a truth claim, as exclusive and dogmatic as the orthodox Christian claims you (apparently) reject?

Can you see how you’ve done the very thing you accuse others of, which by your own definition is “highly presumptive and offensive,” by making a definitive claim to know the mind and will of God?

As for your claim that the history of mysticism somehow contradicts Christian teaching, I beg to differ. No less an authority on the matter than Evelyn Underhill distinguishes between the ‘direct intuition or experience of God’, unmediated and available to everyone because this aspect of God is inherent in creation, and ‘Mystic Union’, which is Christocentric and historically achieved only by faithful and orthodox sons and daughters of the Church. Underhill further distinguishes mystical union from soteriological union.

I’d like to recommend Timothy Keller’s book (and website) to you, *The Reason For God*:
http://www.thereasonforgod.com/

I’ve always had difficulty with the phrase “no one gets to the Father except through me.”

I’m glad you brought this up. We are too often distracted by issues such as same-sex blessings, when the the real issue – the one that has deeply corrupted western Anglicanism – is the trustworthiness of the Bible. Is it truly God’s inspired and infallible Word, or was it written by a bunch of well intentioned but fallible men? Is Jesus really God? Are all His words, as recorded in the Bible, to be trusted, or can we pick and choose as suits our personal world view? Are we the judge of whether or not God’s Word is true and to be wholly trusted, or do we humbly bow before it – as much as it may hurt our fleshly natures?

To suggest that the Bible is not the inspired and infallible Word of God is eschtologically (sp) weak, naive and contrary to the history of mysticism that has engulfed the church for centuries.

I think your concern, both for displaced Anglicans and ‘the historic manner of [the] faith,’ is misplaced. Time will tell, however. For all of us face a reckoning:

…the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others’ harm
Which once you took for exercise of virtue.

Whether or not ANiC becomes a “rump” only time will tell. Even if it does, for my part, I would rather be a member of a rump that is Christian than a diocese that is not.

However, if we assume that the diocese does end up as legal owner of the buildings, their entitlement to do what they like with them is a secular rather than a Christian one.

In case you are in any doubt about how judgemental I am on this issue: if the diocese’s intention is to sell the buildings – and it probably is – I believe that they will have acted in a thoroughly un-Christian – and despicable – manner.