Anglican Perspective: 14 Years of Lambeth 1.10

Canon Phil Ashey
posted August 8, 2012

Dear Friends in Christ,

Exactly 14 years ago to this very week Resolution 1.10 was adopted overwhelmingly by the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops. It provides in pertinent part

b. in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;

d. cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;

14 years later this clarification of Anglican teaching on human sexuality and holy orders has been turned to mud by the official instruments of communion governance. They have passively and actively frustrated any discipline for those who violated Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (1998). 14 years later to this week, The Episcopal Church (TEC) has not only elected one non-celibate homosexual bishop in New Hampshire, but, subsequently, a partnered lesbian as suffragan in Los Angeles. TEC recently approved "provisional rites" for same-sex blessings at its General convention. In Canada, the Diocese of New Westminster has approved rites for same sex blessings while the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) itself passively approves local option.

At the conclusion of its 2012 General Convention, TEC used a theology of baptism divorced from biblical and catholic norms to justify rights of access to ordination for transgendered persons. This new theology trumps Holy Scripture, tradition and reason and is the same junk peddled by the Chicago Consultation and offered as a "gift" to the Anglican Communion at General Convention 2009 publications, and which we documented here. The Communion's governance, specifically the Anglican Consultative Council, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, have collaborated with TEC's manifest destiny to spread this unbiblical, uncatholic and unreasonable teaching to the rest of the Anglican Communion through the Continuing Indaba Project and other means. the rest