Arun Arora responds to The Revd. Canon David Anderson

Most people who have ever entered into an online debate will be familiar with the concept of Godwin's Law.

This law – formulated by Mike Godwin in the 1990s – suggests as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes inevitable. This is not to say that the comparison will be right or justified, but rather that at some point the comparison will be made.

A rather similar law feels like it is taking shape in the debates over the future of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

As the discussions grow longer, the probability of a comparison with Bishop John Shelby Spong becomes inevitable. The comparison may be unjustified or incorrect but as debates rage, the invocation of Jack Spong becomes inescapable.

So it is that in his article criticising the Archbishop of York [http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=1960] The Rev. Canon David C. Anderson dabbles in futility by turning to the long retired Spong in proposing a tortuous thesis that Dr. John Sentamu, on the path to the Lambeth Conference of 2008, has fallen in amongst a group of liberal bandits.

In furtherance of this claim, and in addition to Spong, David Anderson turns to another eminence grise called out of the retirement home in the shape of former diocesan Bishop of Los Angeles, Fred Borsch, who is quoted, along with his successor, in an attempt to demonstrate how The Episcopal Church has begun a slow shift away from a belief in the divinity and redeeming nature of Jesus Christ. Anderson's article goes on to argue that there is a crisis of belief in TEC - not (for once) over sexuality which Anderson suggests elsewhere in his weekly update as no more than a "tertiary issue" [http://diocny.blogspot.com/2007/07/message-from-rev-canon-david-c-anderson.html] – but rather over "core doctrine and belief: who Jesus is and what authority Holy Scripture."

Anderson's beef is that there are senior figures in TEC who don't believe in Jesus and don't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Is it really such a radical claim to argue Jack Spong is among them ?

To place Dr. John Sentamu in such company is unwise indeed. Anderson couldn't be further away from the target in trying to pin his ass's tail on the Archbishop of York. At about the same time that Canon Anderson was writing his article, the Archbishop of York was addressing a multi-faith gathering in the diocese of Perth, Western Australia where he began his address to the assembled audience of Bahais, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs:

"I belong to a missionary faith which holds Jesus Christ as its Lord and Saviour. It is my sincere hope that by end of my speech many of you will join me in that belief. Should you find my invitation difficult, the same Lord and Saviour I serve wants me to continue loving you, attentively listening and respect you."

To the Muslim college, a day later, the Archbishop began his address to those assembled by saying: "I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ who to you is a prophet but for me is the Saviour of the world." So much for Anderson's charge of syncretism

In his excitement over the issue of the exclusivity of Christianity, Anderson could have done worse than to look up Dr. Sentamu's public stance on the issue. Delivering the Presidential address to the General Synod in July 2006,[http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/gsjul06presad.html] the Archbishop quoted Lesslie Newbegin in explaining his own approach to his issue:

"Bishop Lesslie Newbigin is, for me, a great interpreter of the three things we must say about Christ and salvation today in England; how we relate Christianity to an England that has other faiths present. He says we must be:

1. Exclusive in the sense of affirming the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but not in the sense of denying the possibility of salvation to those outside the Christian faith.

2. Inclusive in the sense of refusing to limit the saving grace of God to Christians, but not in the sense of viewing other religions as salvific.

3. Pluralist in the sense of acknowledging the gracious work of God in the lives of all human beings, but not in the sense of denying the unique and decisive nature of what God has done in Jesus Christ."

Canon Anderson's objection to Dr. Sentamu rests on half of one sentence made in an hour long interview with the Daily Telegraph: ".I haven't found that in ECUSA (sic) or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics."

Anderson's objections lie not in the consideration of the mainstream of TEC but rather by reference, by and large, to its extremities.

By using such a broad brush to attack the Episcopal Church as a whole, Canon Anderson conveniently whitewashes the testimony daily offered up by all those faithfully reciting the creeds and liturgy that bear evidence to those doctrines which he alleges have been abandoned. The orthodox voice of the multitude is drowned out and ignored in Anderson's analysis in favour of selective quotation from the fringe.

Where Anderson & Sentamu do agree is the place of Christ at the centre of doctrinal statements. Hence the Archbishop of York's recent comment to a newspaper that: "the thing that unites all Christians is our faith in the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and what makes us Christians is that we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ" would likely be agreed with by Anderson who argues that there are those in The Episcopal Church who cannot be relied upon to share such a belief.

However even Anderson's doctrinal core is insufficient for another of Dr. Sentamu's critics whose rush to criticise the Archbishop of York with almost indecent haste led David Phillips of the Church Society to re-write his original piece criticising Dr. Sentamu [ http://www.evangelicals.org/news.asp?id=698].

Yet even in his re-written article [http://www.evangelicals.org/news.asp?id=699] Mr. Phillip's belief that sexual ethics are "core doctrinal issues" puts him directly at odds with his American counterpart Canon Anderson, who believes such issues to be "tertiary" at best.

This ideological inconsistency between the critics of the Archbishop of York demonstrates that in their rush to say something (anything?) that will place TEC upon the top of a heretical bonfire, Messers. Anderson & Philips cannot even agree amongst themselves upon the importance (or not) of sexual ethics within the current malaise or upon what constitutes core doctrines of faith, belief or the Church. Until such time as they can, perhaps they would be better off refraining from making any comment at all.

The Revd. Arun Arora is Director of Communications for the Archbishop of York