Friday, February 06, 2004

Corporate maneuvers migrate into Episcopal/Anglican struggles?

Memo discloses AAC’s strategy for replacing Episcopal Church
The Washington Post on January 14 disclosed a confidential memo written by one of the American Anglican Council's (AAC) chief strategists that reveals the organization's ultimate goal is to replace the Episcopal Church governed by the General Convention with its own confessionally-based jurisdiction.

"Our ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil committed to biblical faith and values, and driven by Gospel mission," said the memo [see below], dated December 28, 2003 and signed by the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman, rector of St. Stephen's Church in Sewickley, the largest parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. "We believe in the end this should be a 'replacement' jurisdiction with confessional standards [and] closely aligned with the majority of world Anglicanism… We seek to retain ownership of our property as we move into this realignment."

I suspect that behind these maneuvers are people with quite a bit of experience in the material world of corporate acquisitions and hostile takeovers. Of course the corporate world merely rediscovered the techniques of Machiavelli and the machinations of Papal Italy.

History is nothing if not the cyclic reexpression of the fundamental aspects of human nature.

The other struggle here is between the evangelicals and the (nearly defeated) rationalists, mirroring our current political combat. There is little new under our sun.

See also Georgian evolution and the Yahwhites and the Jesites.

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