Bishop Says Episcopal Fight Is Everyone's Fight

By: Warren Cole Smith

Washington--- Bishop Martyn Minns said the current theological fight of the Episcopal Church is in fact a fight of vital interest for all American Christians.

Minns is a leader in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a group of conservative Anglican congregations now numbering approximately 70 in 21 states.

Speaking at the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., Minns said, “The real question we have had to face in the Episcopal Church is how do we separate the values that are worth fighting for from those that are mere cultural preferences. And to what immutable standards do we appeal to make these decisions. These are not just questions for Episcopalians, or Anglicans in the rest of the world, but for all Christians everywhere.”

Minns said that “Holy Scripture” is that standard, which is why arguments over abortion, homosexuality, and other cultural and political issues must be argued from “first principles.”

“Every human life is of inestimable worth because we are made in God’s image,” Minns said. “Every person has God’s mark upon him.” He admitted that some circumstances – such as rape, incest, or the life of the mother – create “agonizing choices,” but “there is a line that we must not cross. That is the line this is not negotiable. When we cross that line, we are not only just making a political or ideological statement, we are rejecting God’s revealed truth.”

Minns said that for “40 years I belonged to a church that has forgotten these timeless truths. My own church became what I have heard called the church of Utopian Unitarian Universalism.” The result, he said, is “division within the Anglican Communion has been painful. Here in the USA it has been agonizing.”

However, Minns said that the tide was turning and there was good news both in the Anglican communion and in the larger Christian family. “Out of the confusion and decline, exciting new life is emerging,” he said. He said that groups such as CANA and the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), a similar group, are not only giving hope to Episcopalians, they are providing testimony that no cause is a truly lost cause. “Christians everywhere should take note of what is happening in the Anglican Communion, both as a warning and an encouragement.”

Minns told WORLD that his very presence at the Value Voters Summit was an acknowledgement that what is going on in the Episcopal Church was of profound importance both to the country and to the Christian world. “The Episcopal Church has had a disproportionate impact on American political and cultural life,” Minns said. “The eyes of America’s leaders and the world’s leaders are on us. Not only that, many Christians in many denominations are involved in similar struggles. We can learn from each other. We can encourage each other. This moment is a reminder that the Christian faith must not just be believed, it must be lived. Then our faith will be an encouragement to other Christians, and a powerful witness to the world.”
(9/13/2008)

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