A Letter published in the Trinitarian:
As a naive, lay novice to this forum, I was interested by Editor Bruce’s worldly and timely questions posed to the Bishops of the G3 for the Trinitarian’s March edition. I was especially struck by Bishop Mead’s response, as apparently also was Archbishop Haverland, chat “the Christian Church is increasingly divided itself on most of these issues”. My thoughts though, took a different turn, back to the 1977 roots of the ACC and rest of the G3 in the original ACNA. The ACC and indeed the entire G3, as followers of the Affirmation-of-St.-Louis in 1977, then enshrined the tenet to “Let us hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all…”
At least in the current laity, I believe that the expectation abides that the G3 will soon be a single, united trunk growing from the root of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA. But now, lacking but 4 years of half a century later, to my American eyes the G3 appear not unified, but ever drifting farther apart, like the continents, driven by their size, longevity, and differing momentums, all while sharing the same truth “which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all”. If that total commonality of bedrock beliefs cannot in 50 years produce unity, what hope is there for the rest of the world, which no longer shares any truths? If the G3 really believed that truth, “always” believed by “all” wouldn’t we indeed be one? The worldly evidence appears to show the absence of any truth ever believed by all.
Lynn Snively
St. Alban’s, Richmond, Virginia