The Trojan Horse from Tanzania

Two weeks ago, I witnessed the commissioning of Anglican "catechists", an office used extensively in Africa to further the work of the church in places where the number of pastor/priests is insufficient for the number of believers. The vow the catechists were required to take included the responsibility to drive away all false doctrine.

In fact, the Ordination vow from the 1662 Anglican tradition explcitly says that church leaders must "with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word; and both privately and openly to call upon others to do the same." Anglicanism was once wholly committed to biblical doctrine and orthodox protestant could fully affirm.

I posted recently about the conference in Tanzania, here, here, here, and here, where the global Anglican church seemingly held the feet of the Episcopal Church to the fire, the church that has replaced the Gospel with UN Goals and openly ordained the first openly gay bishop. Many hailed this event as the beginning of the end for the TEC, and a path to victory for orthodoxy in the Anglican church.

Now VOL reports that The Society for the Propagation of Reformed Evangelical Anglican Doctrine (SPREAD) suggests that the Tanzania event, upon a careful analysis of the language, is in fact a path to further erosion of the orthodox faith within Anglicanism.



The suggestion is fairly simple. While some strong words were issued about the particulars of why the majority of Anglicans worldwide are unhappy with the heresy of the TEC, there is a subtle shift in the basis of why that unhappiness exists. In almost imperceptible turns of language, the entire basis for morality and theology was shifted away from the authority of scripture, God's word written, to contemporary consensus.

In short, though the current consensus is that the TEC is out of step with orthodoxy, the gate was opened to allow the TEC to make a case for altering that consensus. And if the consensus should change, then the TEC would no longer be considered out of step.

This is the bane of the modern era, and the happy suicidal celebration of the postmodern era. The idea that humans in the 21st century should submit to revelation recorded in a 2000 year old text is ridiculous to moderns. And the idea that moral or spiritual truths are fixed is anathema to postmoderns. The only difference between this generation and the last one is the replacement of arbitrary individual judgment with arbitrary community judgment. Both are arbitrary. Both refuse to submit to scripture as written, for very similar reasons.

I don't know what is likely to happen in the global communion. Nobody does. I don't think the African bishops will abandon orthodoxy in my lifetime. But whether the TEC will be held accountable is very much dependent on the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he seems not to be one likely to make a firm stand for historic or biblical orthodoxy.