I posted the following from Metropolitan Maximos earlier back on 2 September on my blog's first incarnation. Here his Emminence clearly articulates the key difference between Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, and why the Orthodox withdrew from ecumenical talks with the Episcopal Church.
The problem with this mentality of some Anglican thinkers is that they have, alas, created a false “source” of truth, which is, actually, fallacy, counteracting the true and only one source of Truth, the Bible in the Holy Tradition of the Church. This “new” but false, “source of truth” is called, in the language of these thinkers, “experience.” Orthodox members in the now defunct Orthodox-Anglican Consultation in the U.S.A. remember Anglican thinkers calling upon this “source” of “experience”: the reason why the sacrament of Holy Chrismation or Confirmation, in the contemporary Anglican perception of those thinkers, is not a sacrament anymore, is that this sacrament is not part of today’s Anglican experience…
The real reason that the dialogue between Orthodox and Anglicans in the U.S.A. stopped, was not as much the unilateral action of the “ordination” of women to the Holy Priesthood, or the unfounded accusation of Anglican people like Bishop Spong that St. Paul was a homosexual, or the Anglican liberalism regarding human sexuality, same-sex “marriages” and the like. It was expected that openly gay “clergymen” will be promoted to “bishops”, and lesbians will not only become “priests”, but also “bishops.” It was their belief that, if today’s “experience” is such, then, allegedly, the “Spirit” of God blesses it!
Do these Anglican thinkers realize that an evil spirit may be behind all these things? What the Orthodox denounce in these false practices and teachings is that, they are the practices and teachings which oppose the Will of God as taught by the Bible, thus, being the result of our fallen, sinful, human “experience!”Posted by Clifton at November 11, 2003 05:00 AM | TrackBack
Clifton,
What's the source of the quote from Met. Maximos? I'd like to read the entire piece. And any other suggestions you might have where I could find good discussion about this "experience" thing. I hear it all the time. But I also wonder what place "experience" plays in our lives, ought to play, can play? What place does "experience" have in the lives of the saints? Well, any help you can give would be appreciated.
Posted by: Robert at November 12, 2003 08:48 AMBob:
The first hyperlink in the entry is the source. This is the link:
http://pittsburgh.goarch.org/news/2003-08-11-anglicanresponse.html
I'm a bit busy at the moment, but I'll comment on the experience thing more fully later today.
Bob:
I don't have any further resources relative to the experience/ECUSA thing except anecdotal blogs and such.
Experience is a legitimate source of Truth when it conforms to that of the Church, which is the Pillar and Ground of the Truth.
When experience contradicts the common experience of the Church, then it is either heresy, or it must at least be tested by the Church before it can be affirmed as Truth.
In other words, experience is not an illegitimate source of truth per se, but it has a derived authority.
This is where ECUSA went wrong on women's ordination and the Robinsion debacle. Instead of submitting the experience to the wisdom of the gathered church, they went it alone and separated themselves from the church whose common experience denies what they affirm.
Posted by: Clifton D. Healy at November 12, 2003 01:28 PMClifton, thanks for the URL. The link in the blog itself gives me a "This page cannot be found" message. And thanks for your thoughts on "experience." A friend of mine also send some materials which I hope to incorporate into my blog soon.
Bob:
I see now what the problem was. I've since fixed the link.