Perfect. Anglican Communion Ambassador to Rome is a Resurrection Denier.

Archbishop Cranmer is among those provoked that an open Resurrection denier has been appointed Interim Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, which is effectively the embassy of the Anglican Communion to The Vatican. Hence its Director is in effect the Ambassador of the Anglican Communion to The Vatican.

The said Resurrection denier is the Very Rev’d Dr John Shepherd, formerly Dean of St George’s Cathedral, Perth, and Chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford from 1980 to 1988.  For Easter, he has said the following and more:

The Resurrection of Jesus ought not to be seen in physical terms, but as a new spiritual reality. It is important for Christians to be set free from the idea that the Resurrection was an extraordinary physical event which restored to life Jesus’ original earthly body.
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Jesus’ early followers felt His presence after His death as strongly as if it were a physical presence and incorporated this sense of a resurrection experience into their gospel accounts. But they’re not historical records as we understand them. 

There’s video, too:

But Happy Easter anyway!

One wonders if he would have been appointed if he were an open “Climate Change Denier.”  Heck, we wonder no such thing.  We know what would have happened.

But personally I am only mildly provoked by this appointment.  It is old hat really.  And, frankly, the Romans under Pope Franco deserve an insulting appointment like this.  The Vatican has a LibPope who enables and promotes abusing and abuse-enabling LibChurchers.  Really, The Vatican deserves worse than John Shepherd.  I hope Gene Robinson and Peter Ball were given due consideration.

This appointment is also appropriate due to the history of openly apostate bishops in the Anglican Communion, none of whom have been defrocked for fifty years and more if my memory is correct.  John Shelby Spong, David Jenkins, Shepherd, and no telling how many other allegedly Anglican bishops and clergy have openly denied and even mocked the physical resurrection of Christ.  How many have been defrocked? Hmmm?

That has provoked me for decades and still does. But with that history in mind, John Shepherd is a very appropriate appointment indeed.  Canterbury and Rome deserve no less.

Pope Francis, Bad Bishops, and a Healthy Church

The latest episode of Pope Francis spouting heresy . . . or not – who am I to judge?  Anyway, the latest episode of Francis being Francis has me reflecting on the importance of a church being able and willing to deal effectively with bad bishops. 

Yes, that is important.  I remember in my young days when I didn’t know an Anglican from a right angle that I did know enough that the Episcopal Church was a no-go denomination for me.  Why?  “Bishop” Spong and TEC’s tolerance of him.  Spong drove the orthodox out of his diocese, and no telling how many he drove out of or repelled from The Episcopal Church.  I am not saying he was vindictive towards the orthodox. He might have been gracious to them for all I know.  But a bishop spouting heresy without being disciplined sends a strong message to the orthodox to leave or stay away.

Further, the leaven of bad bishops spreads throughout a church.  That is all the more true for a Pope who makes numerous appointments worldwide.  And many of Pope Francis’ appointments have been awful.  But even the mere presence of an apparently or openly apostate bishop sends the message that apostasy is okay.  It invites more apostasy.  And the enormities of the Romans have certainly become more evident under Francis.

To avoid these and other ways bad bishops harm a church, a healthy church must be able and willing to depose them or at least demote them to positions where they can do little harm.  And, yes, it is time for Pope Francis to be sent off into the sunset – nicely, of course – but sent off before he does more damage.

That may sound like wishful thinking, and it probably is.  But the Vatican Mafia managed to send off perhaps the best Pope of my lifetime.  So why not be done with Francis?

The answer to that question may be that the Roman Catholic Church is not a healthy church; worse, that the wolves are in control of it.  Most of us are all too familiar with churches that suppress good bishops and promote bad ones and what eventually becomes of such jurisdictions.

Yes, churches can survive bad bishops – 10^th Century Rome had some real winners as Popes – but the downward spiral of The Episcopal Church illustrates that one should not so presume on the grace of God.  Bad bishops must be made demoted bishops or ex-bishops.

Closer to home, are there bad bishops in the Anglican Church in North America that need to be dealt with?

I may deal with that question at another time.

Spong, Good Friday, and Church Discipline

John Shelby Spong did indeed dare to spout his brazen doctrines of demons on Good Friday as advertised.  Some lowlights:

In a Good Friday service at historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, retired Bishop John Shelby Spong decried the Nicene Creed as “a radical distortion of the Gospel of John,” asserted that several of the apostles were “mythological” and declared that Jesus Christ did not die to redeem humanity from its sins.

There was an earthquake on the first Good Friday.  That another earthquake did not demolish St. Paul’s Richmond on this past Good Friday proves that God is far more patient than I am.

Part of Spong’s song and dance is that Christianity must change to attract people; it must “change or die” if you will.  But his version of change drives people away from church.  If the church teaches . . . well, not much of anything except that the historic doctrines of the faith are false, then what’s the point of church?  I’d rather sleep in or go hiking.  And, sure enough, the Diocese of Newark declined by about 40% under Spong.

And Spong long ago kept me far from the Episcopal Church.  Back in my church search of 1988, one criteria was that a church exercised church discipline against falsehood.  My ecclesiology was underdeveloped, and I had never heard of anything “Anglican” (I’m not kidding.), but I knew enough to know that a church that does not care enough about truth to discipline does not care enough about truth, period. 

And Spong was so infamous that even I knew of him.  And I knew that any “church” that tolerated him was not a church for me to join.  Thus, the presence of Spong ruled out the Episcopal Church for me. 

I guess I should thank him for saving me the trouble.

And I am still convinced that how a church deals with the likes of Spong is an important indicator of its commitment to the Faith.  Spongs will always rise up.  But will a church then defrock and excommunicate him should he refuse to repent . . . or will it make him a bishop?

Spong’s status in the Episcopal “Church” conveys all one needs to know about that body, and that long before 2003.

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Hat tip to Stand Firm.

How to – and How Not to – Deal with False Teachers

When I read about Spong’s visit to Australia, I nearly went ballistic. So read at your own risk. But the linked news report illustrates very well how to, and how not to, deal with false teachers.

The Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen did the right thing and banned Spong from his churches. He then went beyond the call of duty and had the diocese’s newspaper attack Spong’s heresies.

But the Primate of Australia? --Phillip Aspinall has rolled out the red carpet for Spong. Among other things, he’s invited the heretic to preach two sermons at the Cathedral of Brisbane. And the wolf has been welcomed to help himself to the school girls as well.

The retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, New Jersey, Bishop Spong will also give a public lecture at St Aidan's Anglican Girls School in Brisbane.

This is an outrage. What part of 2 John 9-11 does --Aspinall not understand?

Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

And any number of NT passages confirm you don’t aid false teachers. As St. John teaches, you don’t even give them a greeting or a bed to sleep in! Much less give them the pulpit in the cathedral.

To me, this is a bigger issue than Gene Robinson as it goes more directly to the truth of the Gospel and the responsibility of the church to defend and teach it.

Unless he’s completely ignorant of the Bible (and I’ll be charitable and assume he’s not), --Aspinall is directly and willfully violating God’s word in an area that strikes to the heart of the gospel and the church’s responsibility to it. And he’s turning his flock over to a wolf. This is damnable.

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And, yes, I’ve noticed that in his Lambeth invitations, the Archbishop of Canterbury is violating 2 John 9-11 as well. That you don’t invite stiff-necked apostates to Lambeth is a pretty simple application of St. John’s teaching methinks. You have to be quite an academic to dance one’s way around that.

How clear do God and his apostles have to be before Anglicans get it? You don’t aid or enable heretical teachers!


Hat tip to Stand Firm.