Good-bye C of E?
The Church of England has synoded (yep, new word) itself while attempting to tackle the issue of marriage as only Henry Tudor's crew can.
synoded [sin/odd/-dead]to act in a way that undermines credibility
I really synoded myself this time.
Gavin Ashenden, former chaplain to the Queen, offers his perspective at the Catholic Herald, which includes the following insight that describes the conundrum.
The reason why it is impossible (for the C of E) to define the terms of what marriage is, and what role sex and erotic attraction plays in a Christian anthropology, is that there is no agreement on where authority lies.
You might think it lay in the Bible, but a whole theological and anthropological industry has emerged on how to not to read the Bible either at face value, or as the apostles, fathers and every generation until ours read it.
With no agreed theology of the Church, authority does not lie in the Church.
With this coalition of ecclesial communities constituting Anglicanism, authority does not lie in tradition, since the traditions are all different and dissenting.
So two characteristics then emerge. The epistemological hierarchy of values has at its head the most potent, loud, aggressive and determined of cultural currents which is a form of therapeutic-contoured, hedonistic-driven, secularised sexualisation.
The second element is simply church politics. Because the C of E is governed in what is quaintly termed “bishops in Synod”, changes in the church’s canon law and doctrine can only happen by a vote, which, in important matters, requires a two thirds majority in all three houses of bishops, clergy and laity.
Synod in the Wind
A follow-up commentary courtesy of Reginald Kenneth Dwight, edited (but only slightly).
Goodbye, C of E
Though I never knew you at all
They found the votes to fold your house
And those among you brawled
They crawled out of the woodwork
And they whispered into your brain
They voted in a synod
And they made you change your game
And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing Who to cling to
When the rain set in
And we would've liked to know you
Before you flipped your lid
Your candle burned out long before
Pray for our brethren who are stuck neck deep in this latest muddle.
Pray for Holy Mother Church that, looking in the mirror of the Anglican synodal experience, her children may flee the tyranny of heresy and be spared a hellish confusion and loss of salvation.
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