An Anglican Moses

I have several times spoken of our need for a Patriarch and have at least in one post alluded to him being a Moses figure. and if we ever needed him we need him now. And we must pray for the Lord to send us a strong man who can lead us out of our bondage and unify the diaspora.

Ex 5:22 Moses returned to the LORD and said, "O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all."
Ex 6: 1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country."

O'Lord where is our Moses? There are many arguments as to why we need a Patriarch but none can be so strong and so simple as that we need a Chief-General. A Commander and Chief so to say, what we need now is a revolution in the house of God. Satan has entered and him and his have laid claim to the house of God, and now oppress His people is if they were his to oppress.

I believe that our diaspora is a punishment from God, know the heart of our communion like He knows the heart of men He has laid out a journey for us to travel, a path which we are to take. He as allowed all of these misfortunes to beset us so that we might come to this point and be as the Israelites crying out to the Lord "Have you forgotten us your people?", and that He might respond " 'Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.' ". God chose Moses because He knew the man he was, and He knew the hearts of the Israelites. How many times did they grumble against Moses and against God, and I fear when the Lord presents us our Moses we will do the same. Will we reject the one called by God to unite and lead us or will we answer Him "Yes Lord I will follow your servant".

The Lord is pushing us and pushing us to the edge of desperation so that we might be ripe with anticipation. How stubborn we men are wanting always to follow our own way even above the ways of the Lord. How easily we divide and fracture because of our pride; for us submission is hard, but isn't that the definition of pride saying "I" instead of "Thee". As St. C.S. Lewis says that we 'are afraid that if we give ourselves whole and entire to God that He might kill us, and in truth it is not until we give ourselves to God that we can truly be ourselves' (paraphrase). The same applies here, we do not like giving up our power to others. This submission however not only one of prudence but of practicality, without a true Commander and Chief we are all free to go about our own ways as the TEC and other branches in the Anglican Communion have proven. The house is divided and so we fall.(Matthew 12:25)

Unity

What are our points of unity? Truly what are they? The 39 articles which many of us reject? Canterbury? Lambeth? Windsor? All of these are Ideas with no real bite behind them, even Canterbury. A figurehead with no authority to act is not worth the paper his name is written on, he can be disobeyed with little or no consequence. These concepts are all hollow in the end with nothing, a house built on shifting sand. We need something concrete and solid to unite us and to keep us united, and the only thing the one and only thing possible is a flesh and blood human being.

The Patriarch is truly no less of a concept than anything mentioned above, however there is one distinct difference; its given flesh and blood and teeth. When you stick a real person in there that people can talk to, who has some authority to do something about dissenters, well then you have something. and it goes beyond simply being able to deal with dissenters into practical application, imagine a major corporation, now imagine that every district in that corporation were allowed to do whatever it wanted whenever it wanted through "local option". Not only would it not be one corporation but it would be luck to last six months. Look at a franchise as a perfect example of how we should operate, franchises are allowed a certain level of "local option" however the local district directors are given their orders from the central office who is ultimately under the CEO. Through local option the districts are allowed to carry out the common orders given to all districts through whatever way is best suited for their district. example "all diocese need to grow by X% over Y years". it also allows for better control of "global" or shared finances "if we allocate $X to Z then we will see a return of Y converts". Or Diocese M needs L to carry out Q.

Abu has said that this is ambitious, I will remind all those who doubt of the Saints who were accused of the same thing. And for a more recent example look at the little Nun who started the Latin Rite channel EWTN, she was accused of being ambitious.

It's plain market government and market economics. Every business needs a government which is suited to growth with someone in charge who is able to have managers under him. and the market economic principle is rather simple as well, is this a great risk? yes, but as the market shows with great risk comes great reward. It all comes down to one thing, how much do we trust God?