Should Ephraim Radner Throw Cold Water On Online Worship? Maybe Not.

I haven’t heard much from Ephraim Radner for years.  And that is probably a good thing.   For I remember his constant drumbeat of criticizing those leaving The Episcopal Church, culminating in his leaving the pre-ACNA Network in a rather ungracious manner:

Bp. Duncan has, in the end, decided to start a new church. He may call it “Anglican” if he wishes, though I do not recognize the name in these kinds of actions that break communion rather than build it up . . . 

Now, although in very different circumstances, orthodox Anglicans are once again striving to minister and be faithful in a difficult situation.  Many are doing so valiantly, including stepping up their online presence.  Personally, I am very thankful for all the excellent online Anglican worship now available.  It is one way God is using this awful circumstance for good.

But Dr. Radner is not so thankful and has thrown cold water on it with his “Should We Live-Stream Worship? Maybe Not.”  His article is close to insulting.  He is certainly dismissive towards those ministering well online much as he was dismissive towards those struggling to be faithful Anglicans by leaving an apostate persecuting denomination.  He even describes livestreaming worship as “maternalizing, infantilizing, and siliconizing the church.”  Well, I guess that makes me infantile.

In fact I am so infantile, it is not easy for me to respond graciously to Radner’s put down, but John Mason Lock and Stewart Clem have. 

I will say Dr. Radner is far better at addressing the academy than he is at addressing orthodox Anglicans seeking to be faithful under oppression from apostates or under threats from pandemics and overreaching governments.  Perhaps he should stick to academics.

A Past Response of +FitzSimons Allison to Dr. Radner

I’m slightly harried today due to craziness in the financial markets. But I want to point you to an excellent past response of the Rt. Rev. Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison to past exhortations of Dr. Radner to stay, stay, stay. Yes, that broken record still hasn’t stopped.

Anyway, +Allison shoots down well the view that the faithful traditional thing to do is to stay with the Episcopal Church. This for me was the money paragraph:

. . . the early church knew orthodox teaching to be of such paramount importance, since it involved the salvation of souls (not mere academic differences), that the church must disobey and replace heretical bishops. This has been amply demonstrated by Professor Werner Elert in Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries (Concordia, 1966) in which he shows that, contrary to Radner's lesson, the early church demanded that heretical bishops be repudiated and replaced by orthodox teachers. Certainly we have reason to thank God that Athanasius did not acquiesce in the Arian establishment of his day.

Amen! And Athanasius explicitly rejected the authority of Arian bishops and appointed priests (and perhaps bishops as well) in their territories. Oooooo! Boundary crossings!

So this idea that we should stay bound together with apostate unbelievers indefinitely is crap. Didn’t Paul have some words about that? Hmmmm?

Ephraim Radner Steps Over the Line.

I’ve long respected Dr. Ephraim Radner, though I’ve sometimes found him exasperating.

But today he stepped over the line.

Not that he resigned from the Network. He feels the Network is now going in a direction he can not go, so resigning is a perfectly honorable thing to do.

He stepped over the line in his resignation statement, particularly here:

Bp. Duncan has, in the end, decided to start a new church. He may call it “Anglican” if he wishes, though I do not recognize the name in these kinds of actions that break communion rather than build it up . . .

So if an orthodox Anglican feels that to be faithful to the Anglican tradition, he must leave the Episcopal Church and perhaps the Anglican Communion, he is no longer Anglican? If a new North American province is formed (which I think likely), but ++Rowan doesn’t recognize it (And I don’t think he will.), will that province be “un-Anglican”?

I’ve seen this sort of denigration of the Anglicanism of those not in perfect communion with Canterbury from liberals. I did not expect to see it from Dr. Radner. It is completely uncalled for and below the belt. Further, it does not the Lord's work but the liberals' work of undermining faithful orthodox Anglicans.

I certainly hope he and the ACI refrain from further undercutting those orthodox who feel they must leave TEC. Kicking them on the way out may be a more graphic way of putting it.

Those orthodox who feel they must remain in TEC on principle, such as Dr. Radner, may be mistaken, but they deserve respect for their difficult stand. Likewise, those who feel they must leave TEC deserve more respect than Dr. Radner exhibited today.