Thursday, June 19, 2008

Bishop Duncan: The orthodox need to confess, too...

From his address to GAFCON in Jordan, which is linked here.

"...the orthodox are not without blame. Over the last five decades we have made more than our share of compromises when issues of Scriptural Truth were debated or challenged. There were also countless times that we kept silence when we should have spoken. Moreover, the witness of our personal lives has been scarcely better than the record of those whom we now forthrightly confront: divorce and remarriage, sexual sin, addiction, material possessions, careerism, children who wander far. Further to our shame, we have sometimes as orthodox battled one another – splintering into factions and sects, competing with one another for territory or adherents, even at times condemning one another – publicly proclaiming the Truth while privately operating for our own advantage. So it is not just the progressives who have allowed sin to masquerade as righteousness, but sometimes the orthodox as well that have disgraced, disrupted and divided the whole Anglican Communion. I begin on this platform – I begin as this pilgrimage begins – by saying that I am profoundly sorry and that I beg the forgiveness of our God and of all of you from other parts of world. We North Americans, all of us here, whether still in the wayward official Provinces or in the several splinters of the continuing churches or in the extra-territorial Provincial outreaches of recent formation, express to you our sorrow and beg from you forgiveness. We have been lords, not servants, and we have distracted you from, and embarrassed you in, the telling of the story in your contexts, and among the peoples to whom God has asked you to bear the message of salvation in Jesus Christ."

1 comment:

Alice C. Linsley said...

A powerful and humbling word!