Has anyone seen the lastest on Canada?
J.I. Packer and Short have resigned from the Anglican Church of Canada, as of last week, and are now among 30 Canadian priests ordained as ministers in the Southern Cone province, under Archbishop Venables. I'm very interested by Archbishop Venable's comment that the division occurring there is not a "schism":
"Schism is sinful separation on secondary issues. This is separation over essential issues. You have not moved. You have remained where you were in Jesus. If anyone has moved, it is those who have abandoned salvation. This is separation from an apostate situation.
"Apostasy has gone unchallenged. Moves away from absolutely essential truth have gone unchallenged. There is no move time. This is the time to move. What you are facing is not another version of the gospel, but another gospel, which is not the gospel."
Clearly these are momentous events for worldwide Anglicanism. Consider these further comments made by Venables:
"I believe that the time comes when a marriage is no longer a marriage and you have to recognize it. With reference to the two positions in Anglicanism at present we are incompatible doctrinally and ethically and quite different in our presuppositions. Once we recognize that maybe we can have an amicable divide. This is separation from an apostate situation. Perhaps we can have an Anglican federation but even that seems unlikely at present,"
And Packer:
"The central question of the attitude to gay partnerships is just as big and pressing a matter in England as in North America and the division of opinion runs as deep in North America and so all the factors that could bring internal division and a blow up are there. The fact that the church is so institutionalized and the need to trim sails for people to live in harmony if they can is the antimony to which the Archbishop of Canterbury and everyone down is committed."
"In England Episcopal appointments are made by a roundabout method, but tends to produce bishops with a high level of intelligence and responsibility not to rock the boat and for that reason things move more slowly. How soon a volcanic eruption occurs, I cannot begin to guess. I would be surprised if it does not happen very soon,"
What can we in Australia (and Melbourne) make of all this? Will this affect us, now or in the future? If it will affect us, what should we and our leaders be doing now to prepare for it?
