Henry Orombi challenges the authority of Canterbury
As I mentioned in an earlier post from a press conference, the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, writing in today's Times, accused the Archbishop of Canterbury of betrayal and suggested that the pivotal role of the See of Canterbury is a remnant of colonialism.
Money quote (1): 'Anglicans may say there are four "Instruments of Communion," (the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lambeth Conference; the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates' Meeting). But de facto, there is only one - the Archbishop of Canterbury. The peculiar thing is that this one man, who is at the centre of the communion's structures, is not even elected by his peers. Even the Pope is elected by his peers, but what Anglicans have is a man appointed by a secular government. Over the past five years, we have come to see this as a remnant of British colonialism, and it is not serving us well. The spiritual leadership of a global communion of independent and autonomous provinces should not be reduced to one man appointed by a secular government.
Money quote (2): 'How can we go to Holy Communion, sit in Bible study groups, and share meals together, pretending that everything is OK?, that we are still in fellowship with the persistent violators of biblical teaching and of Lambeth resolutions? The Bible says: "Can two walk together unless they are agreed?" The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked us to "wait for each other". But how is it possible when we are not travelling in the same direction?'
Full text of article .
Comment number 1.
At 2nd Aug 2008, brain_cell wrote:The issues tearing apart the Anglican Church come down to one single question: how are we supposed to interpret the Bible?
What does the Bible say about how it itself should be interpreted? Consider the following verses from 2 Peter 3:15-16: "... and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation - as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures."
The Bible states that there are some things in it - in the epistles of Paul - which are hard to understand. Yet is it not interesting that on the two questions which divide the Anglican Church - women priests and bishops on the one hand, and homosexuality on the other - the writings of the Apostle Paul are appealed to more often than not. On what basis are we to judge which parts of the Pauline corpus are "hard to understand" and which parts are not "hard"? The safest option is to assume that we don't know, and therefore we must treat all Paul's writings as "hard". That is not to say we can't understand them; it does mean, however, that we should be slow to jump to conclusions, for fear that we may be those who "twist" Paul's writings "to our own destruction", as Peter warned in his epistle, as I've quoted.
Therefore when I hear of certain prelates urging a breakdown of fellowship on the basis of "faithfulness to the Bible", I wonder whether such clergy have really thought through the meaning of Peter's warning.
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