The Archbishop of all North America, etc, dreams of better days

Robert Duncan, deposed bishop of Pittsburgh and the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, made some remarks at an ACNA conference on church planting in Plano, Texas, Tuesday. David Virtue captured his every word, and offers us this fascinating report:

The Archbishop of the Anglican Church of North America said today that“if orthodox Anglicans do what we are sent to do, what we will become is the ancient future movement of the 21st Century church attracting a rising generation of believer leaders abounding in the love of Jesus Christ broken.

“This could be the AnglicanCentury in North America accountable to Scripture, Tradition, the HolySpirit and the transformation of society. There has never been a movement so well positioned at the beginning of an era multiplying congregations fueled by the Holy Spirit. It is the Anglican moment and if we are faithful we should prove to be an Anglican century,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan to 325 new Anglican Church planters.

“We have come a long ways from those dark days seven years ago when the church we grew up in we discovered had left us. We are in a different moment, today.”

Duncan said, "We are in a season where there are so many evidences of God’s favor about what we are engaged in. It is what the Father is doing and there is great blessing when we enjoin ourselves to what the Father is doing. We preach Christ crucified.”

“This is an Anglican moment because it is in God’s plan. We are not something special.God chooses those who don’t deserve it. ACNA is evidence of God’s favor.”

David Virtue would be hard pressed to make this up. These are the words, the very words, it seems, of the Archbishop of ACNA. Several of the sentences warrant further thought:

"...what we willbecome is the ancient future movement of the 21st Century church attracting a rising generation of believer leaders abounding in the love of Jesus Christ broken." This is quite a string of doublets -

"ancient future"

"believer leaders"

"love broken"

Each of these phrases nicely joins ideas slightly out of sync with each other, giving an air of mystery and profundity to the sentence.

Well, a bit arcane perhaps, but the words do stitch together into a coherent whole, even if the diagramming of the sentence is a bit maddening. Still the stage is set: love broken, identification with the crucified Christ, a longing for a future like the ancient past, the hope for believer leaders rather than leaders who lead astray from belief.

But then he goes on. "This could be the AnglicanCentury in North America accountable to Scripture, Tradition, the HolySpirit and the transformation of society." Here the Archbishop is beginning to lose it a bit. Accountability to Scripture, Tradition and the Holy Spirit makes some sense. Accountability to "the transformation of society," less sense. The remnants of the old three legged stool of Scripture, Reason and Tradition remain - Scripture and Tradition make it. The Archbishop speaks occasionally of ACNA as pentecostal, thus the reference to accountability to the Holy Spirit. The fourth accountability, to "the transformation of society," is grammatically mislaid. Oh well, perhaps it was just a bit of a slip.

Then again, who knows? The logic of the next sentences is not much of a help.

"There has never been a movement so well positioned at the beginning of an era multiplying congregations fueled by the Holy Spirit. It is the Anglican moment and if we are faithful we should prove to be an Anglican century." The sentences begin slipping badly here. The new century is no "beginning of an era." Numbers are just numbers. And the notion that, "It is the Anglican moment" and this might "prove to be an Anglican century," is a pipe dream.

He then says, "We have come a long ways from those dark days seven years ago when the church we grew up in we discovered had left us. We are in a different moment, today.”

Well, there is the core of the dream.

It is the dream of the abandoned child, a dream not far from the realities of the lives of some, but here a dream that somehow the church, like an errant parent, had abandoned the Archbishop and those in ACNA. Well, who knows? Still, perhaps what looks like abandonment is not that at all. What if the Church expected the Archbishop to grow up and see the church not as a parent, but as a community?

That is not for the Archbishop. He makes it clear, "We are in a season where there are so many evidences of God’s favor about what we are engaged in. It is what the Father is doing and there is great blessing when we enjoin ourselves to what the Father is doing. We preach Christ crucified.” He assures the world that he has not been abandoned, but rather is in held in God's good favor. The abandonment by the Church is an extension of crucifixion, but God will be steadfast even if the church is not. The whole abandonment thing is part of God's doing, and having been abandoned ACNA folk from the greatest to the least can now more easily reject the church parent and find a new attachment directly with the Father of all. The abandoning church is not of the Father, rather the Father is doing something new.

The wrap-up, the conclusion is, “This is an Anglican moment because it is in God’s plan. We are not something special.God chooses those who don’t deserve it. ACNA is evidence ofGod’s favor.” Even if abandoned by the church because undeserving, God chooses ACNA as a matter of favor.

If it is indeed a verbatim of Archbishop Duncan's words, the quote by David Virtue signals a sad situation. It is revealing of a dream of abandonment and ultimate victory in which the abandoned return in glory, in an "Anglican moment" which itself is God's plan. So the abandoned child, even if rejected, returns as sign of God's grace and favor.

There is a strange sadness in all this.