Here is Bishop Iker's fine sermon at the REC Convention of the Diocese of Mid-America. I reproduce it here so that it can be read without all the sectarian commentary of another Conservative Anglican website. One of the reasons we in the Diocese of Ft. Worth have such close, cordial and charitable relations with Bishop Sutton and the REC is that we all recognize that not every theological question can be answered by reference to the 16th Century Reformation.
Sermon at the Opening Eucharist • The Church of the Holy
Communion, Dallas
February 21, 2014
This could never have happened 20 years ago.
When I became a Bishop in 1993, The Episcopal Church and the Reformed Episcopal
Church were not even talking to one another. It would have been unthinkable
that the Bishop of a high-church, anglo-catholic diocese like Fort Worth would
have been invited to preach at the annual synod of an REC Diocese.
We represented the two different extremes of the
churchmanship spectrum. Our theologies were at odds with one another, and the
only time anglo-catholics in TEC spoke about the Reformed Episcopal Church was
in critical, even derogatory terms – and vice versa, I assume. The REC had
little good to say about high-churchmen such as me!
My how things have changed! In a matter of two
short decades, we have gone from being opponents to being allies. We have moved
from being two separated churches to being part of one united body – The
Anglican Church in North America: one, missionary, biblical, and uniting. This
is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes!
This does not mean that all our differences have
suddenly disappeared, but it does mean that we now stress that what we disagree
about is far less than what we have in common. There is more that unites us
than divides us. And this new sense of our oneness in Christ and our unity as a
church is something God has done, and it is the work of the Holy Spirit – not
man.
The origins of all this go back to the Common
Cause Partnership and the Round Table Discussions, as they were called, some
six or seven years ago. The erosion of biblical authority and the rise of
liberal theological revisionism in The Episcopal Church had begun to lead to
significant fall-out. Those who stood for orthodox Anglicanism began to make
common cause with others in different jurisdictions and church bodies, to stand
together for the truth of the Gospel and to reject the false gospel that was
undermining the Church. This made for some strange bedfellows, or so it seemed.
Your Presiding Bishop, Leonard Riches, was among
those early leaders in making Common Cause with other conservative Anglicans
and in finding a way forward, together. The Anglican Communion Network, the
Reformed Episcopal Church, Forward in Faith North America, the Anglican Mission
in America, and many other Anglican groups prayed together and talked together
and sought God’s guidance together, and the goal was to have one united,
orthodox Anglican province in North America. And by the grace of God, the
Inaugural Assembly of ACNA was held here in the DFW area in June 2009, and a
great renewed witness for the Gospel was unleashed in this country and in
Canada, by biblical Anglicans.
We are here today to thank God for all that has
been accomplished and to renew our commitment to doing mission together in the
years ahead. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in the Epistle reading this
morning: “What we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with
ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (II Corinthians 4:5) It’s not about us – it’s about Him. But what we preach to the world around us is
much more credible and effective when we do it together, as one church, rather
than separately, on our own.
Jesus reminds us that we belong together – and
indeed are part of one another – in the teaching in today’s Gospel where He
says: “I am the vine and you are the branches … He who abides in me … bears
much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) What a wonderful
image this is, of the Church as a fruit-yielding vine, with different branches,
but all enlivened by our common roots, our one source of life. Abiding in Jesus
in Scripture and sacrament and prayer. Abiding in Jesus in a common fellowship
of brothers and sisters in Christ, united not divided – one, though we are
many. Bearing much fruit to the Glory of God in making new disciples, in
planting new churches, in standing for the authority of the Holy Scriptures,
and in exhibiting the fruits of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. That is our
common vocation and witness.
In my growing-up years in Cincinnati and even in
my studies at the University of Cincinnati and then at General Theological
Seminary in New York City, I do not recall having even met a member of the
Reformed Episcopal Church. Oh, I knew what it was, and there was a passing
reference to it in our American church history course. This meant that the REC
was viewed with a certain degree of suspicion and even denigration. Are their
holy orders valid? Are their bishops really in the historic apostolic
succession? Are they truly Anglicans? Aren’t they just a little protestant
sect?
The first REC Bishop I ever met was Bishop Ray
Sutton after he came here to the Church of the Holy Communion. And after a few
conversations with him, I began to think, “Well he’s not half as bad as I
thought he would be!” – as an REC clergyman, not as a person. But as we got to
know one another, the stereotypes began to crumble, preconceptions were set
aside, and we came to understand that we shared the same faith and ecclesiology
and Prayer Book spirituality. Now my greatest friends and allies in the ACNA College
of Bishops, as a traditional Anglo-Catholic, are your REC Bishops – Royal
Grote, Ray Sutton, Leonard Riches, Sam Seamans, and others. Our fidelity to the
Scriptures and the Anglican tradition are paramount, not our past histories of
estrangement.
You may be interested in knowing that the last
four priests who have come into the Diocese of Fort Worth as new rectors have
come from the REC – three of them from this Diocese of Mid-America and latest
one even from this parish – prompting Bishop Grote to say: “Jack, stop taking
all my best priests!” I think our
friendship depends upon it!
But on a more serious note, there are some
serious tensions and differences that we must address in our future life
together in ACNA. I will comment on them very briefly. The biggest one, of
course, is the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood. It is not
sufficient to simply say: “Well, some bishops do it and some don’t.” I am pleased that Archbishop Duncan has appointed
a Theological Task Force on Holy Orders, which is now addressing this issue
that some have called “the elephant in the room.” A final report is expected in
January 2016, and then it will be decision time. I would simply observe that
anglo-catholics and the REC stand together here. Those who do not ordain women
make up a majority of the College of Bishops, and we see the ordination of
women presbyters as a departure from the witness of Holy Scripture and the
apostolic practice of the ancient Church. Pray for God’s guidance as we seek to
resolve this deeply divisive issue, in the interest of deepening our unity in
Christ.
Second, there is a continuing tension between
evangelicals and anglo-catholics that we live with. This is true in the
international GAFCON movement as well as here in the ACNA, where evangelicals
seem to dominate. Evangelicals emphasize the 16th-century Reformation and the
work of the reformers in the Church of England. Everything is referenced in
terms of the 1662 Prayer Book and the 39 Articles. Anglo-catholics reference the
ancient Church of the patristic fathers and emphasize the historic faith and
order of the undivided church, before the division of the Church in the West
from the Eastern Church. We rather like the 1549 Prayer Book as the standard.
We would contend that Anglicanism flourished in England for many years prior to
the Reformation era and that we are a reformed catholic church rather than a
Protestant denomination born in the 16th century. Henry VIII did not found the
Anglican Church and neither did the reformers. Dr. Edward Pusey, the early
Tractarian and the spiritual father of the Oxford Movement, said we understand
“reference to the ancient Church, instead of the Reformers, as the ultimate
expounder of the meaning of our Church.”
Here too anglo-catholics and the REC stand
together. We affirm the four essential elements for church unity called the
Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral.
The
Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God,
containing all things necessary to salvation, and our ultimate standard and
guide in matters of doctrine and morals.
The
Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds as sufficient statements of the Christian faith.
The
two Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion as instituted by Christ himself.
The
historic Episcopate, which preserves the apostolic succession of bishops,
priests, and deacons.
All of these are pre-reformation realities,
dating back to the first apostles. They are not confessional statements
originating in English Reformation theology.
So my dear friends in Christ, let us continue to
stand together and witness together for what
St. Jude calls “the faith which was once for all
delivered to the saints” (vs. 3) Let us give thanks to God for this goodly
fellowship of faith, where God’s Word is truly preached and truly heard; where
the Sacraments are faithfully administered and faithfully received; and where
our lives are being fashioned according to the example of our Lord Jesus
Christ, so that we may show the power of His love to all among who we live.
This is our great heritage as Anglicans, living
members – by God’s grace – of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of
the ages.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Third Bishop of Fort Worth
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