- The ACNA was provoked into being as a response to the Sexual Revolution, meaning the elevation of Gene Robinson to Bishop. It has unfortunately lost credibility on these issues due to the appalling response to sexual abuse, adultery, grooming, and other sexual sins, several cases that I know of which have never even seen the light of day. It’s similar to the Catholic Church losing entire nations like Ireland in part due to clergy preaching against sexual sin and abortion in public, while raping children and having all kinds of sex at the same time.
- It is now embarrassing to be part of the ACNA, and for all the wrong reasons. Googling ACNA is similar to Sovereign Grace Ministries at the height of their scandals.
- The College of Bishops cannot be trusted. Let’s say you were groomed (yes, adults can be groomed) and your local church did nothing about it. You think you should elevate the case to the new Archbishop, he might do something. Well, it turns out he is (allegedly) doing the same thing at his church. Do you think he will take your case seriously?
- The bishops have bungled or actively mishandled numerous situations. They cannot be trusted to vet candidates correctly. They cannot be trusted to protect their flocks. They cannot be trusted to not cover for each other. You think your bishop is different? I hope so but I have my doubts.
- The ACNA is a small denomination with all the problems of a much larger one.
- The “next generation of leaders” are not going to save the ACNA. We told ourselves that back circa 2005-2015. We were wrong.
- Fatigue with the MeToo era has coarsened the receptivity of orthodox Christians in ACNA to legitimate problems around grooming, sexual abuse, and clergy bullying. Ideology is blinding the orthodox to massive, serious problems.
- Believing in clergy abuse does not mean you have to embrace heterodox approaches to sex, women’s ordination, or anything else. It is possible to believe the facts about clergy bullying, clergy sexual misconduct, clergy financial misconduct, etc. and be either for or against women’s ordination, and to be in strict fidelity to the Scripture.
- There is a sad tendency for advocates and victims of sinful conduct to give up on all they knew to be true in Biblical ethics due to clergy hypocrisy. I understand the impulse–”It’s all garbage.” You can resist this impulse!
- Porn use amongst clergy may be producing other problems out in the open.
- It seems highly probable that the bishops and other clergy practice mutually assured destruction: “Don’t come after me about my indiscretion or your scandal from ten years ago might have to come to light.”
- Defending “the good name of the ACNA” is a ridiculous and self-defeating goal. It is a goal practiced by bishops who worry about tweets and blog posts instead of predators and other corrupt clergy.
- As a friend of mine mentioned, the charismatic strand of ACNA suffers from an emotivistic epistemology, is anti-intellectual, hostile to traditional boundaries and institutions, revolutionary and not evolutionary. It is in the DNA of the denomination. It is another factor letting terrible clergy get a pass.
- There is no cavalry coming to save us.
- Someone can be for safeguarding on paper, or be some edgy liberal with tattoos, and still be an abusive, narcissistic, bully.
- Someone can be into the desert fathers, or your favorite theology, and all the right things and still be an abusive, narcissistic, bully.
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