This past week, the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh planted a new Anglican diocese in Indianapolis right under the nose of The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis and its liberal bishop, the Rt. Rev. Catherine Waynick. ...They duly elected and consecrated The Rt. Rev. Amos Akinseye Fagbamiye and enthroned him at the Anglican Cathedral Church of the Resurrection as the first bishop of the Diocese. ...
This is an example of the direct intervention of an African Anglican archbishop on US soil in order to lay the groundwork and foundation for orthodox Anglicanism on these shores. There is not a thing the US Episcopal Church can do about it. They can grind their teeth, yell, and scream to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Consultative Council about violating boundaries, but it will all fall on deaf ears. The Nigerians have landed. They want the gospel reclaimed on US soil because, they argue, the Episcopal Church has abandoned the historic gospel... (excerpt of an article by David Virtue)
Anglican bishops from Africa are violating parish boundaries here in these United States, planting orthodox Christian parishes where the presiding Anglican/Episcopal authorities have betrayed the faith. Is this good or bad?
Ask Darryl Hart and his fellow Escondidoites and it's bad...
Right? After all, this is the sort of thing that was done by Anglicans like Whitefield during the Great Awakening, and Darryl and his fellow Orthodox and Old Light Presbyterians oppose such violations of proper ecclesiastical boundaries.
In an interview Dr. Hart is asked, "What is an Old Side Presbyterian, and do you qualify?"
To which he responds:
An Old Side Presbyterian was a guy who opposed revivalism because revivalists were not as concerned about subscription as Old Siders were, and was opposed to the way that some New Siders completely disregarded church polity and the authority of synod and presbyteries. So if to be an Old Sider is to favor subscription to the Standards, believe in the real authority of the church, and to be suspicious of subjective religious experience, I am one.
For myself, though, I'm not holding my breath waiting for Old Presbyterians to mount a campaign against men like Nigeria's Anglican Archbishop Nicholas Okoh for trampling on the proper local Anglican authorities here in Indianapolis.
Can you imagine Old Light Presbyterians defending the ecclesiastical authority of sodomite Christian bishops by criticizing African black pastors today for not "believing in the real authority of the church" as they regularly criticize dead white pastors in colonial New England who also did not "believe in the real authority of the church?"
Just to be clear: I do not believe these aspects of the ministries of Whitefield and Edwards were wrong, nor do I think this aspect of Archibishop Okoh's ministry is wrong. It used to be that real Reformed men spoke of "the church reformed, always reforming," so it grieves me to watch Old Schoolites opposing such godly reformers as Edwards and Whitefield. What does Scripture say on this subject?
Check out this post from 2007.
And while we're at it, here's a book every reader of Baylyblog should buy and read. It's the non-Ph.D.'d John Frame exposing the many bad errors of the Ph.D.'d at Westminster Seminary in Escondido in a book called The Escondido Theology: A Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology
(w/thanks to Jody K.)
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
Want to get in touch? Send Tim an email!
