Unthinking Anglicans

The other day I had an unexpected visitor. As I was tending to my garden, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I froze as I immediately recognized that tap. Turning slowly, I gazed up at my old embedded source, Deep Pew! "Pewster", he said, "You have to see what 'Thinking Anglicans' are up to across the pond. I think you will find that you have been sheltering yourself from vitriolic revisionists since you retired from the Episcopal wars." I invited Deep to step inside and guide me to this group, but he said that he had to run (which would have been a sight to see), and he jumped onto a waiting black sedan which departed with a cloud of CO2 and other gases belching from its tailpipe.

"Thinking Anglicans"? I remember being told too many times that Episcopalians didn't check their brains at the door of the church. The insinuation being that those fundamentalists down the street do.

As it turns out, "Thinking Anglicans" don't think like most Anglicans if they think at all. Witness their comments to ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach's refusal to be treated like a gentile by Archbishop Justin Welby.

"The Anglican Communion News Service has published a news article titled: Archbishop of Canterbury invites ecumenical observers to the Lambeth Conference. This reports that such invitations have gone to a much wider group of churches than at previous conferences.
It also says that:
In addition to leaders of Churches in Communion and ecumenical partners, representatives from Churches formed by people who left the Anglican Communion are also being invited to send observers. These churches – the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), the Anglican Church of Brazil and the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH-SA) – are not formally part of the Anglican Communion but are recognised to different extents by some of the Communion’s provinces."

"This has provoked the following response from Archbishop Foley Beach of ACNA:

Yesterday I received a letter from Archbishop Justin just moments before the invitation was reported online. I read the online report first and was disappointed to see that the original 'news' source had furthered a partisan, divisive, and false narrative by wrongly asserting that I left the Anglican Communion. I have never left the Anglican Communion, and have no intention of doing so.
I did transfer out of a revisionist body that had left the teaching of the Scriptures and the Anglican Communion and I became canonically resident in another province of the Anglican Communion. I have never left. For the Anglican Church in North America to be treated as mere 'observers' is an insult to both our bishops, many of whom have made costly stands for the Gospel, and the majority of Anglicans around the world who have long stood with us as a province of the Anglican Communion.
Once I have had a chance to review this with our College of Bishops and the Primates Council of the Global Anglican Future Conference I will respond more fully."

The comments that followed from "Thinking Anglicans" illustrate the mindset of our opposition (I have removed the names to protect the guilty),

"Incredible how Foley Beach (the 'Archbishop', no less) has made this about him and his martyrdom for his “sacrifice.” I had assumed that Welby would do this, once he asked for ecumenical observers. Incredible the sense of false outrage, self-righteousness and entltlement on Foley’s part for public consumption. Wait for the GAFCON bishops to ride to his rescue. 'We didn’t leave, they left us' is their cry. Don’t forget that they left to ensure that the oppression of gay people and the enshrining of unAnglican conservative fundamentalism can be maintained within their church of judgement and exclusion. Not to mention trying to steal what wasn’t theirs. They always seem to be able to cry about injustice and persecution when things don’t go their way."

"To ensure the oppression of gay people"? "Enshrining unAnglican conservative fundamentalism"? That seems to prove the thesis that the "liberal" misnd is closed to Bible based theology while open to all innovations that feel good to them.

"It appears utter stupidity on the part of Welby to invite folk who still live in the dark ages, and do not want to express and feel the full love of God for themselves or those to whom they ‘minister’.
If I were a pessimist, which I am not, I would suggest it is a management ploy by Welby to increase the pressure on those Provinces who have moved forward in their expression of love for ALL God’s children, regardless of gender orientation."

Living in the "Dark Ages" eh? Well, I  guess that is an improvement over being called a knuckle dragging Neanderthal.

"Keep in mind that ACNA is playing a propaganda game within the Communion, aimed specifically at their GAFCON allies. They import African bishops to do their ordaining and Foley is now one of the top players in GAFCON. ACNA is campaiging to be regarded as THE Anglican entity in the United States, if not North America, displacing the recognized Churches already in the Communion. This has always been their stated goal. Even to admit that they are not “in the Communion” (and they are not) is for them a loss of their propaganda message and the claims they have made. Welby should have seen this coming."

Displacing the recognized churches has always been ACNA's goal? Sorry, but I think the goal is to form biblical Anglicans who can face the brave new world created by secularism and revisionism.

"Nobody excommunicated ACNA, unlike King Henry. They left voluntarily because they were no longer allowed to force their opinions on the rest of their church. They may resent that, but it is what happened."

No, the opinions that were forced down our throats were that same-sex couplings are a blessing from God and deserve to be celebrated with a bishopric, a rite of blessing, and a marriage ceremony.

If anyone can explain this next one, please let me know,

"Foley Beach -.'I never left the Anglican Communion' has the stamp of the Gafcon/Foca/Acna sodality, which did not exactly sleepwalk into secession from the world-wide Anglican Communion. The real problem here is that the ABC is still obviously under the impression that ACNA-ites will be very keen to take up their Invitation To Lambeth, but what good will it prove to be for loyal Anglicans around the world, for whom this ‘Cuckoo in the Nest’ is seen to be a backdoor route to ACNA’s claim to Anglican Orthodoxy?"

Somewhere in all of that non-thinking one sane voice commented,

"Rather than say 'they were no longer allowed to force their opinions on the rest of their church', you could say that they held fast to the teachings of Anglicanism, which had been accepted for centuries."

That comment did not gain any traction.

I guess nobody thought very much about it.

"Unthinking Anglicans" might be a better name for this group.

"Devil's Henchmen" might be even better.