"Irreconcilable Truth Claims" -- Watch for Anglican Developments

From Al Mohler's blog [boldface mine]:

Pressures in the Anglican Communion continue to build as conservative leaders around the globe now call for a postponement of the communion's next great gathering -- the Lambeth Conference scheduled for London in 2008. . .

A conservative boycott of the Lambeth Conference would be, in effect, a statement that the communion is no more. Archbishop Akinola set the issue in its clearest form yet:

"The world needs to understand that the situation that we now confront is not primarily about structure or conferences but about irreconcilable truth claims. It is worth remembering that in the Biblical narratives religious structures have often been the enemy of revealed truth."

Akinola's insistence that the controversy is about "irreconcilable truth claims" is irreducibly justified and necessary. Liberal forces continually try to define the issues as merely procedural or structural. Akinola knows better -- and so do those who oppose him. The issue is truth, not structure. The conservatives cannot ignore the fact that liberals are violating the clear teachings of Scripture. . .

All this comes just days after the U.S. church's Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, warned Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan that he might be removed from his office if his diocese pressed ahead with a vote to leave the church. The diocese did press ahead, voting overwhelmingly to leave.

Meanwhile, all eyes are now on Chicago, where the diocese is scheduled to elect a new bishop tomorrow. One of the candidates, Rev. Tracey Lind, is a practicing lesbian.

Those two votes will tell us a great deal about the future of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Increasingly, the church is divided between those who believe that the Bible's teachings about homosexuality are authoritative and valid, and those who see them as repressive and in need of revision or replacement. Underlying all this is the fundamental issue of biblical authority. . .

Read it all.
H/t to A Voice in the Wilderness.

A Tale of Two (Potential) Bishops

From Ralph Webb at Anglican Action, a very telling post on the difference in treatment between Mark Lawrence+, elected bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, whose consents were declared invalid, and Tracey Lind+, candidate for bishop of the Diocese of Chicago:

. . . In a 2004 essay in the progressive publication The Witness, Lind argued that if the Anglican Communion were to stand against the "full inclusion" of gays and lesbians, then faithfulness to Jesus might require leaving the Communion:

"My sisters and brothers in this enterprise we call Anglicanism ... if the conversation does not shift to the real issues [and, from Lind's perspective, away from the "scapegoating" of gays and lesbians], then perhaps the words of Jesus about leaving house, fields and families behind might even come to include the Anglican Communion. For in the end, it's not about the church; it's about the Gospel."

Let's see here. Lind at minimum foresaw the possibility of, and arguably advocated for, people leaving the Anglican Communion if the Communion ultimately proved rejecting of the Episcopal Church's stance in favor of "full inclusion."

That leads me to a question: How is Lind's view concerning leaving the Anglican Communion substantially different from the view concerning leaving the Episcopal Church allegedly held by Mark Lawrence at the time of his first election as Bishop of South Carolina -- the view that lead to the smear campaign against Lawrence?. . .

Read it all. And here's background on the Mark Lawrence+ election.