Rivalry

It seems to me that the temptation to define ourselves in opposition to or rivalry with others is a dead end. While I am sure that there are revisionists like me who define themselves as not-the-Anglican-Church-in-North-America, I see this oppositional definition frequently among those who have adopted the labels traditionalist and orthodox. In blog post after blog post there are attacks on the Episcopal Church, attacks which seem to me to part of a self-definition of not-the-Episcopal-Church.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I have been told, declined to make any judgment about whether or not the Nazi-controlled church was a true church. He simply stated that he believed that in the Confessing Church one could see the three marks of the true church; the Gospel faithfully preached, the Sacraments faithfully administered, and the church's life faithfully ordered. It is these marks that I see in the Episcopal Church and I will make no judgment about the Anglican Church in North America.

In all the continuing debates within the Anglican world, we would do well to follow Bonhoeffer's example.