Really Right

Children are often regarded as a blessing from the Lord. But for some, they are a curse and a shame. I have two instances that are currently being played-out in the lives of people with whom I am acquainted.

The family situations of these two children are very different. One family consists of a single mom; the other is husband and wife in a stable marriage. One child was raised in church while the one with a single mom has probably never heard a sermon.

Both children are in rebellion against their parents and society in general. Both under performed in school and want to party and be with their friends. Both are found in the bowels of MySpace.com. Text messaging on cell phones is their link to their friends.  Abusing alcohol and sexual promiscuity are important components of social interaction.

Both children are financially irresponsible and are aided by others in perpetuating their behavior. One of these children is underage and is living at his girlfriend’s house with the blessing of her parents. What tales of his home-life he has told to them is not known but can easily be imagined. They are enabling his rebellion and re-enforcing bad behavior. The other child has credit cards; a sympathetic mother and a sugar daddy, professional athlete, that help her persist in irresponsible behavior.

Both children have broken the hearts of their parents. The hardest thing the parents have to struggle with is cutting-off their children while still hoping for repentance and enlightenment. Their desire is to have a restored relationship with their offspring.

Neither child was raised with an appreciation for the church or its teachings. This includes of course the Ten Commandments. The fifth of these is

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Notice the part about long life as a promise of obeying God’s and their parent’s instruction. I’m sure that Rushdoony would argue that this is a two way street but when children willfully violate the instruction of parents, Scripture and civil law it is clear they are without excuse and will reap what the sew.

Many years ago, I was instructing the brother of one of these children in the Lord’s Prayer. He was ten years old at the time and raised in a “Bible Believing” Baptist church and never knew that Jesus has instructed that when your pray you should say

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

The parent’s reaction was that she did not want her child “to be taught all that Catholic crap”. Sorry, it’s verbatim from the New Testament and there were no denominations back then. You either believed Jesus and followed him or you didn’t. (Seems like it is still that way today.)

Whether the parents made all the right decisions or not when they raised their children; neither family viewed their job as complete when their child chose to leave. “My house, my rules” is the universal motto of any responsible parent.

Now that the children have chosen to learn from the school of hard knocks, all we can do is pray for the parties involved and trust God that they will live long enough to amend their ways.

Scott Adams, the father of the Dilbert comic strip, has proposed that there is a right way, a wrong way and the weasel way. The Weasel way has been superseded now by the Anglican way. The Archbishop of Canterbury has thrown in the towel on unity within the Anglican Community and proposed splitting the Church into the Orthodox Historical Anglicans who have a vote in Church matters and the liberals who will be under the umbrella of his authority but be given no vote in matters of Church government. Below is an article from the London Telegraph explaining this idea that is sure to make waves.

Williams sets out his blueprint for twin-track Church

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 28/06/2006)

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday outlined radical plans that could force the liberal American Church out of mainstream Anglicanism if it refuses to toe the majority line on issues such as homosexuality.

In his most personal and direct statement on the crisis engulfing the worldwide Church, the archbishop made clear that his patience was running out with liberals who defy official policy yet want to stay in the Anglican “club”.

In a six-page “reflection”, Dr Williams set out a blueprint for a “two-track” Communion, with Churches prepared to obey official policy classed as “constituent” members and those who refuse to curb their autonomy being given “aossciate” status.

The “associate” Churches would still be bound by historic links but would not share the same constitutional structures, he suggested.

In a phrase that will alarm liberals, the archbishop said the relationship between the constituent and associate members would be like that between the Church of England and Methodist Church.

“The ‘associated’ Churches would have no direct part in the decision-making of the ‘constituent’ Churches, though they might be observers whose views were sought or whose expertise was shared from time to time, and with whom significant areas of co-operation might be possible,” he said.

The move would effectively create two strands of Anglicanism and would be widely seen as the equivalent of a schism even if no individual provinces are formally expelled.

Allies of the archbishop believe that the plan will ensure that Anglicanism will remain a broad but manageable movement, but critics will fear that he would gain papal-style powers over an inner core of Churches.

The archbishop’s letter to the Church did not address the more immediate fate of the American Episcopal Church, which failed to meet the requests made by him and his fellow primates to halt its liberal agenda at its General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, last week.

Dr Williams is not expected to make a final pronouncement on whether the liberal leadership of the American Church will be invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference until a meeting of all the primates early next year.

But he will hope to persuade conservatives that expelling the Americans will not be necessary, as the liberals could anyway find themselves on the margins.

Under his long-term plan, first disclosed in The Daily Telegraph last month, all provinces will be given the chance to sign a “covenant”, which will restrain them from acting unilaterally on contentious issues.

Those that did not – up to a third have expressed doubts – would be able to continue pushing through their divisive reforms without destroying the rest of the Church. But they would lose their voting rights at key Anglican summits where policy is decided.

A number of provinces, including the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada, have already made clear that they would be highly unlikely to sign such an agreement.

If the plan is adopted at the next Lambeth Conference, the liberals will be confronted with a choice of whether to join up and lose their much- prized autonomy, or face isolation.

In his reflection to all bishops, clergy and Anglican faithful worldwide, Dr Williams said: “There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment.

“Neither the liberal nor the conservative can simply appeal to a historic identity that doesn’t correspond with where we now are.”

Liberals reacted with fury to the plan, describing it as a mess that would please no one.

Affirming Catholicism, a liberal group of which Dr Williams was a founding member, said that “partition” would not work.