Pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren has entered the conflict within The Episcopal Church over title to church property, offering his full support to the breakaway congregation of St. James in Newport Beach, Calif., and the third province movement known as the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
In a letter obtained by Christianity Today, Pastor Warren offered the former congregation of the Diocese of Los Angeles shelter on the campus of Saddleback Community Church following the Jan. 5 California Supreme Court decision on church property disputes. The influential minister also pledged his congregation’s support in planting new ACNA congregations in Orange County.
“We stand in solidarity with them, and with all orthodox, evangelical Anglicans,” he wrote, and offered the “campus of Saddleback Church to any Anglican congregation who needs a place to meet, or if you want to plant a new congregation in south Orange County.”
Larry Ross, a spokesman for Pastor Warren, confirmed the authenticity of the document saying it was “a private letter sent out to conservative Anglican leaders” on Jan 9.
In the letter, Pastor Warren noted that the Episcopal Church has “already considered me an adversary after partnering on projects with [archbishops] Kolini, Orumbi, and Nzimbi, and writing the Time bio on [Archbishop Peter] Akinola.”
In November 2005, he shared a platform with the Anglican archbishops of the Global South movement at the “Hope and a Future” Conference in Pittsburgh, organized by Bishop Robert Duncan, and he backed conference leaders’ call for The Episcopal Church to return to its doctrinal roots.
Pastor Warren was a prominent voice in the support of the Proposition 8 campaign to overturn the California Supreme Court decision permitting gay marriage. In his letter, Pastor Warren wrote that “since last summer... I’ve been on Gene Robinson and others’ attack list for my position on gay marriage.” Last month Bishop John Chane of Washington wrote that he was “profoundly disappointed” that Pastor Warren was chosen to give the invocation at the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama.
The Rev. Peter Frank, director of communications for the ACNA, told The Living Church the ACNA leadership was pleased with the show of support.
“All along Rick Warren and many other Christian leaders have reached out to support us,” Deacon Frank said. “This gesture will be helpful as the parish considers its options.”
The Rev. Richard Crocker, rector of St. James’, said he was “encouraged by this sign of support from the Christian community.” He was “overwhelmed” that [Pastor] Warren had “graciously offered us space, should we need it,” but said the congregation has no immediate plans to move out of its Newport Beach facility.
(The Rev.) George Conger
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3 Comments
Thank you Pastor Rich Warren and the wider evangelical community. If his example was copied across the country, by Baptists AOG and others it would really bless ACNC congregations who suffering for their faith in the USA.
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On the one hand, it could be said that this is disappointing; Rick Warren has a considerable level of pull among *some* Christians - evangelicals, mainly, although evangelicalism's ecclesiologically diffuse existence mitigates against anyone ever being able to co-opt the majority (let alone the entirety) of that ever-teeming sea of churches. Nonetheless, to become involved in another church's affairs and begin telling them what to do - especially when one is not even anywhere in their ecumenical orbit - is not a little verbose. And, in light of polemics against ECUSA's/TEC's unilateralism (both real and imagined), Mr. Warren's actions do indeed seem ecclesiologically imperialistic: no one asked him to set foot in our domains, so why does he think that he has the right to do so?
On the other hand, as a Southern Baptist, Mr. Warren is about as far from (historic) Anglicanism as he could be on matters of ecclesiology, as well as liturgical, sacramental and biblical theology (all of which, for Anglicans, are bound up with the entirety of church history); indeed, he is no closer to historic Anglican orthodoxy than the motley lot of bishops that are currently - and utterly carelessly - balancing our entire Communion (not to mention our national province!) over the precipice of ecclesiastical disaster and disintegration. Thus, his statement that "[The Episcopal Church has] already considered me an adversary after partnering on projects with Kolini, Orumbi, and Nzimbi, and writing the TIME bio on Akinola" is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. As he - and we - ought to well know, the number of people upset about that article could not have been a majority in our fair church, just as a majority in our fair church could not have been in favor of the article. (It is interesting to note, however, that TIME published a bio. on Akinola in 2007 - one year after Warren's bio. - that took a very different angle on the Primus of Nigeria: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1615513_1614655,00.html.) The simple point here is that the opinion of a Southern Baptist minister, even one as popular as Mr. Warren, need be of no real concern to Anglicans in the USA or elsewhere (John Chane, of all people, notwithstanding). If ACNA thinks that the opinion of Mr. Warren is something like an ace in the collectively schismatic pocket, this only goes to show how far they themselves are from the Anglican orthodoxy of Cranmer, Hooker, Andrewes, Butler, Ramsey, etc. To be "overwhelmed" (as Rev. Crocker apparently is) by Warren's gesture only shows that some "evangelicals" are as inclined to reduce Anglicanism to a merely liturgical aesthetic as some "progressives". If that is the case, it is regrettable in its better moments, and proactively destructive of what remains in our present litany of increasingly fragile moments.
Anglicanism is essentially reformed and evangelical.
This is how it was in the beginning in England and this is how it is today in most countries around the world.
So most Anglicans have a great deal in common with Rick Warren, including a high respect for the importance of the local congregation.
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