David Virtue, of the conservative blog “VirtueOnLine: The Voice For Global Orthodox Anglicanism”, has provided a commentary on Canadian Primate Archbishop Fred Hiltz’s remarks in response to the meeting of Anglican Primates January 11-15, 2016 at Canterbury.
The Primate’s entire comment should be read here: http://www.anglican.ca/news/a-reflection-on-the-meeting-of-the-primates/30014029/
Mr. Virtue’s comments on the words of Fred Hiltz can be viewed here: http://virtueonline.org/despite-controversy-primates-meeting-success-says-canadian-archbishop
In an attempt to get a read on the conservative mood in response to the Primates’ meeting in Canterbury, I have selected some of Virtue’s words and posted them below in the form of a question and answer. The questions are mine. The answers are copied directly, though occasionally in slightly different order, from the words David Virtue used to comment on the remarks made by Fred Hiltz.
(nb: VOL = Virtue On Line ie. David Virtue)
What was the atmosphere and what was the outcome at the Primates’ meeting in Canterbury?
VOL: There was no confusion, there was some frustration and a lot of pain. The *GAFCON primates were not remotely confused about what went on. They came, they listened, they stayed, they scored and they pronounced an anathema on +TEC.
*GAFCON: Global Anglican Future Conference that was called by conservative Anglicans in June 2008 in response to their growing disaffection with the theological direction of some members of the worldwide Anglican Communion. GAFCON has come to designate the people who met at the conference and have continued to band together to oppose what they see as the departure of certain Anglicans from the Christian faith.
+TEC: (The Episcopal/Anglican Church of the US)
The *Global South exacted punishment from Welby for TEC’s sexual misbehavior over gay marriage and Hiltz now knows that if his province goes down the same road TEC has gone down over gay marriage he’ll be kicked to the curb like TEC.
* Global South – 24 of the 38 autonomous provinces (Member Churches) of the Anglican Communion (an estimated 85 million Christians in over 160 countries around the world), plus the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) which isn’t a province of the Anglican Communion. nb: ACNA was founded in 2009 in the US and Canada by former members of the Episcopal Church of the US and the Anglican Church of Canada who felt ECUSA and ACC had abandoned the Christian faith.
Why did the Primates who disapprove of the move by the church in the US to approve same-sex marriage, stay at the meeting?
VOL: they stayed because they did not want to leave some 21 newbie archbishops to the tender mercies of liberals like *Hiltz , +Makgoba and other Western liberal provincial archbishops.
*Arcbhishop Fred Hiltz – Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada
+Thabo Cecil Makgoba – Anglican Archbishop of South Africa
The Global South, especially the GAFCON primates had nothing to lose by staying, they knew they could get something out of +Welby even if it wasn’t the whole ball of wax.
+Archbishop Justin Welby – Archbishop of Canterbury since 21 March 2013
One archbishop asked for a vote and then he threatened to leave and he did. The Primate of Uganda Stanley Ntagali left because his province is in broken communion with TEC. The other GAFCON primates are in impaired communion and stayed because they wanted disciplinary measures against TEC and got it.
How do you understand the response of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church?
VOL: *Curry’s final verbal fling at the +ABC and the primates was aggressive, accusing them of racism and more, even to the point of intimating that he would use his Church’s money to push his pansexual agenda onto the African provinces of the communion in the name of inclusion….
* Michael B. Curry – Presiding Bishop (Primate) of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church of the US
+ ABC – Archbishop of Canterbury
What may the future hold for the Anglican Communion and particularly for the Anglican Church of Canada?
VOL: There ARE consequences which we will see three years down the line. If there is no repentance then TEC could be formally asked to leave or they could leave themselves, or, better still the Global South leave en masse and leave the West to slowly wilt and die.
…if its upcoming [Anglican Church of Canada] General Synod approves a resolution to change its marriage canon to allow same-sex marriage…Reliable sources say there would be consequences…. if Hiltz goes ahead with formalizing gay marriage it could knock him out of the court for an invitation to * Lambeth in 2020.
*Lambeth – the every-decade gathering at Lambeth Palace in England of nearly 600 the Anglican Bishops from around the world – nb: the Lambeth Conference was first convened in 1867 and would normally have been held in 2018 but was postponed for fear that a number of Bishops would refuse to attend
You can have all the “conversation” you want but the Global South will not cave into Western colonial attitudes on sodomy and gay marriage. Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words. There will be no compromise on this issue from the five largest African provinces who represent 70% of the Anglican Communion. If they did it would be the end of the Anglican Communion as we know it…. TEC has become so apostate, departing from the gospel that any “conversation” and talk of “reconciliation” is impossible.
***************
The “Comment” section at the end of Mr. Virtue’s post leads off with a reflection from “Pete” who writes:
In A Spacious Place 
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February 25, 2016 at 6:00 pm
Robert
Does anyone actually believe Jeshua of Nazareth – He wasn’t Greek and His name wasn’t “Jesus” so perhaps we should get that straight – meant something else when He said, “therefore a man shall leave his parents and cleave unto his wife and they shall be as one flesh.”
We’re funny creatures, almost two hundred years ago, supposedly sentient and at least nominally Christian people, many of whom had grown up reading the Bible, and often little else, rushed off to follow a man who said they could have as many wives as they could afford, and that he had “another gospel” and a “revelation” to explain all this. The above statement in the Gospels was no obstacle, nor was the fact that Christ’s first miracle was to change water into wine, or one of his last acts to enjoin his disciples to drink it “in remembrance of me” “as oft as” they did for any reason. No, the Dear Leader said you may have as many wives as you wish, but he knew better than Christ and you must not drink wine! And so, because it suited their desires, off they went, full of pious words and “sexual activity”. Their very pious leader led the way with 33 wives by the time he was done. (The liking of so many women for such domestic arrangements is indeed a curious thing!)
And now we have different fashions: Indian baghwans with a Rolls Royce for every year of their lives and followers most of whom had graduate degrees. Jim Jones, who would greet visitors and new devotees with the suggestion that he sodomize them there and then, and took a flock of mostly white sheep down to the jungles of Guyana and there disposed of them…we really shouldn’t puff ourselves up too much, many of us are frankly pretty stupid, even if we have got the moon.
So how much importance should one put in all the sound and fury over “LGBT” issues and the good old C of E? (Interesting hierarchy in that term LGBT; someone must have decided “BGLT” wasn’t right for some reason)
Perhaps the old C of E needs to ask itself who its target audience is and perhaps recognize that since it is an “Catholic” church, it cannot be Unitarian at the same time. Hillary forbid that we should “exclude” anyone, but perhaps exclusion is more about how people choose to react than how others react to them? You can’t be “excluded” unless you want to be. Anyway, it really doesn’t matter two pins what the agony aunts in the C of E decide, the Gospels aren’t going to change to suit us, and we can either change to suit them or go to hell in whatever way we please.
“Narrow is the gate that leads to salvation, and few are they who find it.”
Surely our time would be better spent looking for the way in?