Anglicans deal with heretical bishops by waiting for them to die

That seems to be Rev. Gary Nicolosi’s approach in this article. While waiting for wayward bishops to die might appear to be gentler than summarily defrocking them – assuming the process isn’t artificially hastened – it doesn’t work particularly well in a church like the Anglican Church of Canada which is producing new heretical bishops at a greater rate than it is burying them.

Bishop Paul Moore of New York told a story several years ago about an incident that occurred in his junior year at General Theological Seminary. Some of the students were upset by a headline in The New York Times stating that the bishop of Birmingham (England) did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. The students rushed to their theology professor, Dr. Marshall Boyer Stewart. “Dr. Stewart, Dr. Stewart,” said the students, “what are we going to do? The bishop of Birmingham, a real English bishop, does not believe in the resurrection!” Dr. Stewart put his face in his hands, sighed and said, “Well, the bishop of Birmingham will die someday, and the next bishop of Birmingham probably will believe in the resurrection.” That, Bishop Moore said, is how Anglicans deal with heresy!

Nicolisi’s article deliberately muddles the necessity for confronting heresy by quoting Matthew 13:24-30, the parable of the weeds: in his view, heresy is a weed that, if uprooted, might also uproot the wheat. This, of course is a typically devious liberal misapplication of a parable. While we are not to uproot possible unbelievers from the church, allowing teachers – bishops – to spout anti-Christian nonsense is an entirely different issue.

2 Peter 2:1-3 puts pay to the idea of  tolerance  for false teachers; unsurprisingly, Nicolosi doesn’t quote from it.

One thought on “Anglicans deal with heretical bishops by waiting for them to die

  1. I suppose it’s more humane than burning at the stake. Of course, one can always move away from those whose ideas are incompatible with one’s own. Remember the advice of Gamaliel to the Sanhedrin, quoted in the early chapters of Acts. If God is with them, thay will prosper, if not, they will fade away, unless, of course, somebody with more dogmatism than sense decides to create martyrs.

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