Weekly Update from the AAC

March 21, 2014

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. -Psalm 37:5-6

Our Job is Not to Look Back

by Robert Lundy, AAC Communications

The Anglican Church in North America's newest bishop has ambitious and challenging goals ahead of him. The Rt. Rev. Mark Zimmerman is the first bishop for the Anglican Diocese of the Southwest and began his Albuquerque-based ministry in February of this year. The bishop immediately faces the challenge of growing and expanding the ministry of the 14 small congregations that make up the new diocese. Zimmerman is simultaneously learning Spanish as his goals include reaching out to the large Hispanic populations in the area which includes Northern Mexico.

Bishop Zimmerman told the American Anglican Council he welcomed the challenge and was prepared for it by his years of service in smaller Episcopal and Anglican congregations. Specifically, the challenge of leading a congregation out of The Episcopal Church and into temporary buildings while at the same time positively responding to new ministry opportunities was formative and helpful to the 57-year-old new bishop. St. Francis-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Somerset, Pennsylvania was a special place for Bishop Mark. By 2008, he had spent nine years leading the parish and taking it from a small, 30-member congregation to nearly 100 on a Sunday. He also led the church to be free of debt for the first time in its history.

Nevertheless, un-biblical teaching, practices and leadership in the national church compelled him to make a decision of conscience. Zimmerman says he first announced his decision in front of the entire parish. "I simply got in front of the pulpit on a Sunday and told the congregation that I had to make a personal decision to leave The Episcopal Church. I told them I would be preaching the next Sunday at the local mall in what used to be a men's clothing store and gave them the address." A week later, Father Zimmerman and 80 percent of the members of St. Francis-in-the Fields Episcopal Church met for worship at the local mall, effectively leaving their building and past behind them...Read more.

Article 6: The Old Testament

Canon Phil Ashey discusses the second part of Article 6 of the 39 Articles of Religion which focuses on the contents of the Old Testament.

Article 6 (Part 2) - Anglican Perspective

TEC appeal rejected in South Carolina case

Diocese of South Carolina

March 18, 2014

The South Carolina Court of Appeals today rejected an appeal that would have delayed a trial in the Diocese of South Carolina lawsuit to protect diocesan and parish property from seizure by The Episcopal Church (TEC) and its local group, The Episcopal Church in South Carolina (TECSC).

The Court decided that TEC and TECSC could not appeal a lower court ruling on the process to be used in discovery.

The Court of Appeals effectively said it will not tolerate legal shenanigans to delay a trial to decide whether the denomination may seize South Carolina property, including churches and the diocesan symbols. In asking the Court of Appeals to dismiss the action, the Diocese of South Carolina argued that TECSC is appealing a court order that is "unappealable".

South Carolina's Court of Appeals justices agreed...Read more.

TX Supreme Court Denies Rehearing in ECUSA Cases

Anglican Curmudgeon

By A.S. Haley

Today the Texas Supreme Court denied the losing parties' petitions for rehearing in the two ECUSA cases pending before it: No. 11-0265, Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, et al. v. The Episcopal Church, et al.; and No. 11-0332, Masterson v. Diocese of Northwest Texas. The Court had delivered its opinions in the two cases last August 30. In the first case, the Court had sided with Bishop Iker's Diocese by a closely split vote of 5-4, reversed the summary judgment of Circuit Judge John Chupp which had awarded all of the property and assets of Bishop Iker's Diocese to the Episcopal Church and its rump diocese, and sent the case back to the trial court. The majority held that the trial court had improperly failed to apply a "neutral principles of law" analysis to the issues. The four dissenters did not disagree with that result, but instead believed that the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear a direct appeal from the trial court's judgment in the case.

In the second case, the Court by a vote of 7-2 reversed the Court of Appeals' decision requiring the Church of the Good Shepherd in San Angelo to turn over its building and all other assets to the Diocese of Northwest Texas. The Court definitively ruled that all Texas courts must follow "neutral principles of law" (rather than deferring to an ecclesiastical hierarchy), and that based on such an analysis, the Dennis Canon was not effective under Texas law (or that if it were effective to create a trust, the trust was not expressly irrevocable, and so could be revoked by the parish in question)...Read more.

Osteenification and What It Portends

Patheos
By Hank Hanegraaff

Virtually every morning I try to catch up on news and sports while running on my treadmill. Often the running (mostly walking) is accompanied by the vigorous exercise of my remote. Recently, I flipped into an interview involving Singaporean mega-pastor Joseph Prince. The more I tuned in, the faster my heart rate. Disregard for the meaning and context of Scripture was simply breathtaking. It all led up to taking a shower and beginning work on a book now titled The Osteenification of American Christianity.

Why Osteenification? Because Joel Osteen is the prime provocateur of a seductive brand of American Christianity that reduces God to a means to our ends. A message that beckons multitudes to the table of the Master, not for the love of the Master but for what is on the table. He is the de facto high priest of a new brand of Christianity perfectly suited for a feel-good generation. And while a host of pretenders (including Prince) follow in his train, Osteen is clearly the biggest of the bunch-according to People magazine, "twice as big as the nearest competitor." And his claim to America's largest church is just a small part of the story. With one billion impressions per month on Facebook and Twitter, Osteen is the hip new personification of God-talk in America...Read more.