ACNA’s Next Generation Leadership Initiative – More Wokeness to Come?

The Next Generation Leadership Initiative (NGL) of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has their website up.  This particularly alarms me from the Antioch Clergy Initiative page:

DIOCESAN TRAINING

The leadership of diocese and the churches receiving curates agrees to work with NGL on multi-ethnic ministry training including:

·       Intentional training on multi-ethnic ministry through reading materials related to a multi-ethnic and ethnic-specific ministry

·       Invite speakers to diocesan events who can address issues related to God’s vision for multi-ethnicity and practical tools for organizational change

·       Attending retreats/conferences on multi-ethnicity (through consultation with NextGen Leadership Team)

One unfamiliar with ACNA initiatives may think this reasonable and think me an alarmist or worse. However, the Anglican Multi-ethnic Network (AMEN), another ACNA initiative, while led by Esau McCaulley pushed woke propagandists such as Jemar Tisby and decried "white privilege" for the sake of multi-ethnic ministry, of course.  McCaulley now leads the NGL Initiative.  Although not led by McCaulley, the Gatherings of the Matthew 25 Initiative have featured a lot of woke propaganda, for the sake of “justice and mercy,” of course. 

This seems to be a pattern in ACNA, to create various initiatives with commendable outward aims that become venues for pushing wokeness. 

Also, it is hard to miss that some who have influence in ACNA think “social justice” advocacy is necessary in attracting more young and non-white clergy and laypeople to ACNA. (That would be news to my very multi-ethnic parish that runs the full spectrum of ages.)

So I think it is to be expected that NGL will be pushing more of the same, more confusion of ministry and Lib/Left advocacy.  I would like to be proven wrong on this and other concerns about NGL.  But I am usually right about this sort of thing, which can be annoying.

Senator King Warns of Unrest if Election Results are Delayed

Senator Angus King of Maine is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats.  I am not a fan because he seems to me to be more Democrat than independent.  With that said, he is on target with a warning that we are at risk for unrest after the November elections, particularly if the results are delayed:

Sen. Angus King, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is warning of protest “violence” and “conspiracy theories” running “rampant” if the November election results are delayed.

"I hate to say it but it invites violence," King said on Monday. "It invites people going into the streets who feel their votes weren't counted or something crooked happened." 

I think four factors put us at increased risk of post-election violence:

1. Increased use of mail-in ballots which not only enables election fraud, but increases the number of ballots that are counted late, often days after Election Day.  

2. Democrats have not as a whole respected the result of a presidential election that went against them since 1988.  They especially and openly disrespected the 2016 election of Donald Trump.  Now Biden is already making incoherent noises about Trump trying to steal the election.

By this point, Republicans would surely feel less obligated to respect the 2020 election if it is close and goes against them, particularly in light of the Democrat’s long history of election fraud.  If Democrats steal elections then do not respect them when they do not succeed, why should Republican respect an election that goes against them?

Of course, they should respect elections if the results are clean enough. But there is not a tremendous amount of incentive for that after the Democrats’ act since 2016.  Sadly, the 2020 election would have to be close to a landslide for both sides to respect it, and there is no guarantee of bipartisan respect for the results even then.

3.  Yes, as mentioned, the Democrats’ long history of election fraud.  And they are trying to double down on that with increased mail-in ballots among other ploys. J. Christian Adams has written an article on this that should alarm all reasonable people.  It’s gotten to the point that just about any close victory of significance by Democrats is suspect unless proven otherwise.  Yes, I’ve said it.

4.  This country is divided and practically at each others’ throats already.  Imagine how a disputed election might make matters even worse.  Well, maybe don’t imagine that too much right now if you have too much to handle at the moment as so many do.

So, yes, Angus King, who is about as middle of the road as a Senator gets anymore, is right – we are indeed at risk of significant unrest after the November elections.

The Big Smear From The Woke Church and Christianity Today

It is almost a creed with the Woke Church crowd that the founding of America was profoundly racist and that America continues profoundly racist to this day.  The Woke Church smears the church in America as well.  

From the Woke Church, Jemar Tisby being perhaps the most prominent example today, you hear a litany of sins committed against Black people by America and the church, some concocted (particularly in that much they call “racism” is hardly that) or exaggerated, but much of which are indeed awful and to be regretted.   We certainly should not ignore the history of racism in this country nor pretend that we and our forebears are without sin. 

The problem is the following baggage is attached to said accusatory confession:

The blithe ignoring of the almost universal nature of racism in the past.  

Go back 200 years or more.  Will you find any society that was not racist or at least tribal?  Why then is America singled out as peculiarly racist?  And are we to then reject everything good from American and British past and be good totalitarian Taliban and Jacobins and topple it all?

Chronological Hubris. 

As C. S. Lewis well pointed out, we have a tendency to look down on the past and think ourselves so superior to it.  That certainly includes confessing their sins – a species of that favorite LibChurch activity of confessing other people’s sins – while overlooking or downplaying our own.  Those with unenlightened views of race in the past were in the wrong.  But they would be appalled by the prevalent sins of society today and would be right to be appalled.  Every age and society has its prevalent sins, and that includes us.  (No I do not consider white-on-black racism a prevalent sin today, but a dying one.  Anti-white racism on the other hand….)  Should we then smear and reject the good that our forebears have passed down to us because we are so arrogant as to consider their sins worse than ours?  Again, that’s what totalitarians do.

Downplaying progress. 

There has been astounding progress in the area of race in America even in my lifetime and marked by the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008. . . .   Oh, I hope I didn’t make you faint there.  Yes, I did and do see good in the election of Obama; it made clear that skin color is no longer much of a barrier in America.  At the time, I actually hoped it ushered in a post-racial America.  Sadly, Obama and now the woke crowd decided to pick and tear at old wounds of racial division and make them bleed afresh.  Yes, I think wokeness is a much bigger factor behind today’s divisions than “whiteness.”  If the woke crowd is really that concerned about racism and division in America, they need to take a good long look in the mirror.  We were making very good progress until they came along.

Trust that I could say more.

Oft times, the Woke Church is more Satanic than Christian.  Like Satan, they twist and weaponize history to accuse the brethren while practically ignoring the brethren’s repentance, forgiveness and ongoing sanctification. 

(And, no, I do not think Americans are a whole are being sanctified as American Christians hopefully are.  I certainly do not conflate being an American and being a faithful Christian. But the accusatory pattern of smearing one of the greatest nations the world has ever seen goes hand in hand with smearing the church.)

As many of you perceptive readers have already noticed, Christianity Today has joined the Woke Chorus of accusation.  Like much of the rest of The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now, they practically jump up and down and squeak, “Me, too! Me, too!  I’m woke, too!”   An op-ed by CT’s president and CEO Thomas Dalrymple is the latest example.  It is certainly in the Woke Big Smear genre, using very selective and regrettable history (And, again, what country or church does not have regrettable history?) and a warped interpretation of it to smear country and church. I found this passage especially slanderous and vile:

The name of Phalaris is not much remembered in the 21st century, but in classical antiquity it was infamous. The tyrant of Agrigentum on the island of Sicily, Phalaris is known for a gruesome instrument of torture: a hulking bronze bull, hollowed on the inside, set over a fire. As victims were forced into the bull and roasted alive, the nostrils of the bull rendered the screams of the dying into a sonorous groaning that filled the palace with music. You might be a guest at the feast, unaware that your entertainment came through the agony of others.

Today’s generations may say we did not invent the bull of racial injustice. But we have benefited from it. The resiliency, creativity, industry, and indomitable faith of African Americans in spite of all they have suffered is nothing short of miraculous. We have all benefited not only from their labor but also from their innovations and entrepreneurialism, their art and music, their films and poetry and books, their hymns and preaching. The transformation of black suffering into economic abundance for America, as well as art and passion and brilliance, has enriched our feast in the palace. Perhaps we can honestly say we did not know what our brothers and sisters were suffering. Now we do. So there’s only one thing to do: put down our forks and get our brothers and sisters out of the belly of the bull.

It disgusts me to see a once excellent Christian publication be the accuser of the brethren like that. 

Yes, for those concerned about how wokeness has infiltrated the Anglican Church in North America, there are any number of clergy that approve of the Big Smear and at least one diocesan Canon who publicly approves of this article.  I am not mentioning her by name because I do not want to single her out when it is a much wider problem in ACNA and other church bodies.   

The Woke Big Smear must be rejected by both Christians and non-Christians before it further poisons and divides our churches and our country.

The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now VIII: Summarized

Phil Johnson gave his address at the Social Justice and the Gospel conference more than a year ago, and I do not think I agree with all of it.  But a statement early on so well summarizes The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now (TECoWHaN) that I have to revive this series to quote it:

The Western Evangelical obsession with winning the world’s admiration is incompatible with God’s strategy for winning the lost. Every decade or so trendy evangelicals adopt some new idea about how we might get the world to be more impressed with the church. 

Sounds like what is happening now, does it not?  As I said when discussing the “emergent” church:

A recurring pattern of The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now is to urge, for the sake of being “missional,” becoming more relevant to aspects of contemporary cultures. And there is certainly a needful place for that within limits.  But also part of the pattern is that, before long, it becomes clear that so being missional and relevant is a cloak for injecting said culture’s false teachings into the church.

Yes, again, all too familiar.  Evangelicals have long had a problem distinguishing being worldly and seeking to win the world to Christ.  They need to read less Tisby and more of St. Paul in Athens and Corinth….

That’s it.  That’s the best I’ve got today.  Go read closely of St. Paul in Athens and Corinth.  Go.

A Good Morning for Psalms 56 and 57

I never cease to be amazed how the appointed readings in the Book of Common Prayer can be so providential.  I was so amazed during personal Morning Prayer today when I saw Psalms 56 and 57 were appointed for the 11^th morning of the month.

These two psalms well describe the mob running rampant today.  They “goeth about to devour” those who dare say no to their evil.  “They be many” and control many/most of the big corporate and educational institutions.  They are tyrannical.  They twist and use people’s words against them.  They “speak lies,” and more.  

The actions and success of the mob of late certainly can alarm.  But…

Nevertheless, though I am sometime afraid, yet put I my trust in thee.
I will praise God because of his word; I have put my trust in God, and will not fear what flesh can do unto me.

These psalms comfort and strengthen in the midst of times such as this.  These psalms remind that God and his people, not predatory mobs, win in the end.  Being so reminded is needful as it takes courage to say and do what is right today when freedom of religion and freedom of speech is so under attack.

Thanks be to God that he knows well what we are going through and helps us providentially through his word and through the Book of Common Prayer.

“America’s New Religion” of Antiracism

One of the several downsides of living in a time of mass insanity is that it can be disorienting.  Perhaps it’s the fear that comes with so much of society trying its worst to self-destruct that disorients. 

I note this because I have had trouble knowing what and how to write lately.  That is not for any lack of enormities that make tempting targets for my digital pen, nor for lack of God graciously showing me great and wonderful things through my reading.  I suspect disorientation is a factor.  Perhaps the difficulty of writing in a sane fashion in the midst of insanity is a cause for my writer’s block.

Anyway, being at a loss for words lately makes me all the more impressed by Peter Leithart’s post “America’s New Religion,” which religion is Antiracism.  He captures very well much of the zeitgeist of this current moment. 

My thoughts are no substitute for reading the whole article, which is not long, so please do so.  But I will venture to add a thought or two nonetheless with the obligatory disclaimer that I am not discussing opposition to the sin of racism which I and all decent people share, but the quasireligious ideology of Antiracism.

Leithart is right to note that Holy Antiracism’s aim and “hope that America will, somehow and someday, fix racism once and for all” is virtually “eschatological” and can hardly ever be satisfied.  Of course, Antiracism is not the first fervent cause that has been that way.  The Prohibitionists come to mind.  They, often motivated by rather un-Anglican religious fervor, just knew that society would be so much better if demon rum were banned.

Of course when the Prohibitionists actually got their way in the U. S., it created more societal problems than it solved, and booze was hardly eliminated anyway; instead organized crime and disrespect for the law was enabled.  Racism and other sins are like that too until Jesus comes back, and if one makes a utopian idol out of eliminating them, seven demons worse than the first may take their place. But tell the Antiracists that at your own risk.  Anyway, the failure of Prohibition was ended in 1933, thanks be to God.  

If one watches and listens carefully to the Antiracists as I often do, one will have cause to fear what will happen to society if the Antiracists get their way.  The rampant cancelling, ritual humiliations, and iconoclasm of historic statues are just a foretaste.  It will make Prohibition look like a cake walk.

But be aware that, of course, if one listens critically to the Antiracists as I do, that is not really “listening.”  “Listening” to them includes uncritical agreement, not unlike the “holy listening” Libchurchers have advocated concerning their apostasies.  You probably have already found this out the hard way, but I’m letting you know just in case.

Leithart also got my attention when he stated the following:

Though disguised in Christian colors, Antiracism is a rival faith. And not only a rival in a general sense, a competitor for hearts and minds. It's a rival in the sense that orthodox Christianity is one of Antiracism’s targets. If there’s one thing a newly established religion cannot tolerate, it’s the persistence of the old establishment.

I could not but be helped to be reminded of the oft anachronistic Antiracist attacks on Christian heroes such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield.  Or, while we’re at it, of the disdain towards traditional Anglican worship that the woke in ACNA sometimes let slip out. 

One can certainly dispute Leithart’s contention that Antiracism is “a rival faith” although I find it hard to disagree.  That Antiracism is a parasitic and demanding idolatry is even harder to deny.  Its infiltration into the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention and of the Anglican Church in North America, not the mention how American cultural elites are falling all over each other to bend the knee to it, gives reason for concern.

Southern Baptists See Biggest Membership Drop in 100 Years

From Christianity Today:

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) lost 2 percent of its membership last year—the largest drop in more than a century, according to its annual report.  Certain state conventions did report increases in baptisms and church growth, including in places outside the SBC’s Bible Belt strongholds. But overall, the denomination’s Annual Church Profile—released today by LifeWay Christian Resources and capturing 2019 statistics—shows a trajectory of serious decline and a sharp challenge for leaders concerned about evangelism and retention.

Both the CT and LifeWay articles go to pains to mention factors other than the elephant in the room likely behind the acceleration in SBC membership losses – the SBC’s now overt pushing of wokeness, particularly its endorsement of Critical Theory as ratified by Resolution 9 at last year’s convention.  Flip the report and note that inside the Bible Belt strongholds were significant declines.  That seems to confirm that SBC’s wokeward lurches have not been helpful.

As much as the Woke Church crowd may be in denial about it, many/most Bible-believing Christians in America do not like Leftist ideologies and political advocacy infiltrating their churches.  One can argue whether American Christians are right to be that way (They are.), but that’s the way it is.  Such infiltration helped drive me and many out of the mainline denominations the past several decades.  And now the SBC is learning that lesson the hard way, if they will ever learn.

Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), please take note.

A Call to Prayer from Archbishop Foley Beach

Today Foley Beach, the Archbishop of ACNA, issued a heartfelt and needed call to prayer.  I appreciate its spirit and balance and will most certainly participate.

His call to prayer follows:

Dearest People of God in the Anglican Church in North America:

I write you with a tremendous heaviness in my spirit and soul as I observe and participate in what is happening today in the United States of America. If ever there is a time for the people of God to fall on our faces before God and plead for his mercy and intervention, now is the time. As believers, we are given the privilege of coming to the Throne of Grace with our petitions and requests, and he promises to hear us. (1 John 5:14,15)

Consider what we have experienced in recent days and weeks:

• Another senseless killing by a police officer of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.
• Hundreds of thousands of people participating in peaceful protests.
• The unleashing of a spirit of lawlessness where rioting, violence, destruction of businesses and properties (mostly minority owned), unbridled theft, personal assaults on bystanders, store owners, the elderly, and police officers.
• Covid-19 closing whole countries down, reportedly killing over 100,000 people in the U.S., over 7,000 in Canada, and over 10,000 in Mexico, and creating an economic calamity with tens of millions of people unemployed across North America.
• Numerous businesses and churches have had to close down and many will not reopen.
• Incredible generosity of strangers helping strangers in the midst of calamity.

Sisters and brothers, I am asking you to join me in spending the next week in prayer and fasting for North America (Wednesday, June 3 – Wednesday, June 10). For those who can fast the whole week, a day, or a meal, I ask you set aside time to intercede on behalf of your community, state, and nation.

Pray in the Holy Spirit and as the Holy Spirit leads you, and as you do, consider these petitions:

• Show me my own sin; reveal to me the darkness of my own heart (Ps.139:24)
• Reveal to me the repentance I need in my own life.
• The ending of the lawlessness and violence.
• Justice for those who have had their lives taken from them, especially George Floyd, and comfort for their families.
• Comfort for the family and friends of the thousands of people who have lost their lives because of Covid-19.
• Help for the millions who find themselves suddenly without a job.
• Provision for all those business owners who have lost their business because of rioting, for those who have insurance and those who do not.
• Strength for the health care workers, nurses, doctors, technicians in hospitals and medical facilities who continue to work fearlessly to save lives.
• Wisdom for our government and civil leaders as they seek to keep us safe both from the virus and from the violence in our cities.
• Food and provision for those who are hungry and in need.
• Fresh anointing for the Church of Jesus Christ to faithfully proclaim the Gospel and reach people who are hurting, suffering, alone, and in need.
• Specific acts of grace and mercy that You want me to carry out in this time.

If you would like some specific prayers to help you pray, consider these from the Book of Common Prayer 2019 on pages 657-661:

• #39 – For our Nation
• #40 – For All Sorts and Conditions of Men
• #41 – For Cities, Towns, and other Communities
• #42 – For the Human Family
• #43 – For Social Justice
• #44 – In Times of Social Conflict or Distress
• #45 – For Those Who Serve Others
• #46 – For Commerce and Industry
• #47 – For the Unemployed
• #48 – For Agriculture and Farming
• #49 – For Schools, Colleges, and Universities
• #50 – For the Medical Professions
• #51 – For Those Who Inform Public Opinion

Jesus said: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. (Luke 11:9,10)

Your brother in Jesus Christ,


The Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach
Archbishop and Primate, Anglican Church in North America