Sabbath 10/1/28/120
On this Tenth Day of the First Month the lamb was set-aside for the Passover.
We have all been praying and fasting for the Sanctification of the Temple of
God. This week we have fasted for the Simple and the Erroneous.
It is appropriate that we have prayed for the erroneous in our community. What we have seen take place in the Anglican community over recent times should be a signal lesson to us all.
The Anglican Community has split over the so-called “gay” issue and the ordination of homosexual Bishops. That system has come undone because it tore itself loose from the Laws of God. When did it do that? When did the Church in England become apostate and theologically in error? The average uneducated person would probably respond with the claim that it became in error when it separated from the Church in Rome under Henry VIII. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Anglican Church was forced into a state of moral and theological decline when the Roman Catholic Church entered England under Augustine of Canterbury, and the bishops of the Church in England were forced to accept Roman Catholic rules, rites and theology in 664 at the Synod of Whitby. It was done under threat of force by the Angles under Ethelbert, whose Catholic wife had been instrumental in the sending of Augustine of Canterbury to England in 597.
Until 597, and then 664, the church in Britain, over all England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland was Sabbatarian and Quartodeciman (see the Quartodeciman Disputes (No. 277). They kept the food laws (see the paper The Foodlaws (No. 15)). They were Sabbatarians (see the papers General Distribution of the Sabbath Keeping Churches (No. 122) and the Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God (No. 170)).
In the fifteenth century, Henry Tudor was disaffected by a number of matters in England. Henry was of the line of the Welsh kings through Tudor or Tewdor of the line of Rhys ap Gryffidd (or Griffith) King of Deheubarth, later called Prince of South Wales because of English regnal considerations. The Tudor line was in line to the throne of England though marriage in the female line. Henry was also related through a daughter of Rhys ap Gryffidd to the line of the Martyns (of whom Sir William Martyn was Lord Mayor of London), and to a line of Earls and Barons through that and other marriages. The Wars of the Roses between Lancaster and York had weakened the houses and also their influence. Richard III was King of England but was being undermined. The Tudors were a powerful third influence and claimants to the throne. For instance, Princes William and Harry are both descended from Rhys through the Martyns to the Spencers, as well as to the Tudors and the Plantagenets through their mothers line.
A major influence in the problems of the time was the clergy of England who were charged with the prosecution of the laws of England. The Roman Catholic Church had been taken over by Monastic elements in the Twelfth century. They were probably better described as homosexual elements. To this day, the Trinitarian church is riddled with them. Married clergy and females as deaconesses had been banned from ca 1175 onwards. By the middle of the 1400s, the clergy were not prosecuting sodomy as was expected of them.
In view of a large number of considerations, Henry Tudor marshalled the forces available to him in England and Wales. He and his forces fought the Battle of Bosworth and defeated and killed Richard III. Henry assumed the throne as Henry VII. On his accession as king, he put an end to the Wars of the Roses and began to put the laws of England on a sounder footing. He took the prosecution of sodomy out of the hands of these so-called celibate priests, who were themselves hopelessly compromised with the problem, and vested its prosecution in the state.
There then began a series of reforms of the influence of the clergy and the priories. None of it was completely possible until the Reformation had been put in place. That was to occur under his son, Henry VIII. From that time many of the monasteries were closed. The Reformation then saw married clergy placed in the church in England.
The Bible was opened up to the general populace by the printing of the Bible in English and thus available to everyone that could afford to pay for one. The Bishop of London had spent a considerable amount of money buying up the copies as they came into England from Geneva, but he probably merely made them cheaper by economies of scale.
The Reformation in England failed because it did not go back to the original doctrines of the Church before Whitby and restore the original faith. It went back only to Augustine of Hippo in the fourth century and thus failed to restore the true faith.
As a consequence, the church has been a constant source of false teaching and problems for many centuries, teaching at odds with the Bible and only suppressing dissent by persecution, as did the Roman Catholics before them.
That has resulted in a general disintegration of the faith. Clergy could not really believe what they said as it so clearly contradicted Scripture. The result was that they either ideologically became dependent on the theology of Rome for their authority, or disclaimed or suspended belief.
It is no little wonder that the surveys conducted of the Anglican Church in England and elsewhere, shows that very few of their clergy actually believe in God. The obvious question is how can a minister of religion not believe in God? The answer is that he regards it as a job and a social welfare system rather than the execution of a faith delivered by God through His servants the Prophets. Thus, the Bible becomes a work of fiction and the clergy are simply social workers that are not compelled by any section or element of the Bible.
That is why many are leaving the Anglican faith en masse. Church attendance in the UK is down to about 2% of the populace, or such like. The Roman Catholic Church is no better as freedom of speech and information is exposing the same old problems regarding sexual aberration, and no thinking person who reads the Bible believes them either.
This then brings us to the present position where the U.S. and Canadian Churches have been excluded from the Anglican Communion over their ordination of homosexuals.
The leader of the Church in Canada, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, says that it may be just a matter of time before there is a permanent split in the worldwide Anglican Communion. His comments follow the decision to suspend the U.S. and Canadian branches from a key group because of their liberal views on gays. He said the decision did not mean the issue of homosexuality had gone away.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has also warned that the divisions could become permanent. He previously warned that some would have to admit error, but he seems to be deluded into thinking that there is a way forward without division.
The North American churches were asked to withdraw from meetings of the Communion's chief representative body for three years after a meeting of Anglican primates, or leaders, from all over the world.
Conservative Anglicans had been angered by the Canadian's decision to bless same-sex marriages and the ordination of openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson in the U.S.
Archbishop Hutchison said he had feared an even worse outcome at the meeting in Newry, Northern Ireland.
The fact of the matter is that many conservative clergy have asked for their permanent expulsion and the schism seems to be permanent. It is only a matter of time before such a schism is permanent.
Defending the decision to ordain Gene Robinson, the head of the U.S. branch, Frank Griswold, Presiding Bishop of the American Church, said it had been "right and proper". He did however recognise that it had been "extremely problematic and difficult in many parts of the world".
What is important also is the fact that it is not the British
sections of the Anglican community that are quoting the Bible at the erring
Bishops. The homosexuality debate has pitted traditionalists, who are notably
from the African branches of the Anglican community, against the more liberal
elements that are in the U.S. and Canadian churches. Frankly, the Africans need
to be congratulated for standing up for their beliefs, even though they are
wrong in the basics of Anglican theology.
The primates have suggested a special hearing in June to allow the U.S. and
Canadian branches to explain their views on homosexuality. Let us see what happens
then.
Where then does it all go?
The answer is that we have been through this before. The priests of Baal did the same thing and sodomy was rampant in Israel during the worse days of its aberrant and idolatrous systems. The Anglican Church has not yet mastered the cognitive dissonance of the Roman Catholic system that denies and outlaws something the great percentage of its priests reportedly does and exploits.
The Anglican Church is nothing like its original ancestor in Britain before Roman Catholicism corrupted it. It is getting worse and is staffed by people who now reportedly, by survey, do not even believe in God. What a farce.
All of these divisions are destined to consolidate the final form of the religious system of the last days. That system will be a much stronger and intolerant system that will supersede these aberrations of a dying clergy. These false systems based on the Triune God of the Baal system, will come to an end in the not too distant future. They will be consolidated and reshaped into a new reformed system that will come under a false prophet in the Last Days
Pray that we are able to call our people to repentance.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General
© Copyright 2005 Christian Churches of God, All Rights Reserved
