From ACNA to Episcopalian

Great article. Very thoughtfully and charitably written.
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/11/15/how-the-acna-helped-me-become-an-episcopalian/

 

It's an interesting article. I do not fully understand the author's objection to GAFCON and the ACNA's existence, though.

 

It’s not uncharitable for me to point out that the Episcopal Church now has transgender clergy, and promotes (from the national office) women priests who call abortion a “blessing”. Or that for the last twenty years they have had (and celebrated) clergy and bishops who are in open homosexual relationships.

Facts cannot be charitable or uncharitable, they just are.

People can read pro-TEC outlets like LivingChurch, but whether they will get any facts from it is another question. It has covered up and deflected Episcopalian travesties for the last 70 years, beginning with open pro-Marxist insurrections by Bishop Pike in the 1950s, and the first illegal women’s ordinations in the 1970s.

 

I feel sorry for that guy. There are many great people in TEC but the church has jettisoned to many key Biblical issues to count as a faithful church in my opinion.

 

His argument runs something like: the diocese is the most basic unit of the church. There are still faithful dioceses within the broad Anglican Communion. GAFCON and ACNA are placing bishops within the geographical territory of existing dioceses. This is causing schism within the Anglican Communion. Additionally, the founding of ACNA was canonically irregular and therefore of questionable validity.

Of course, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth since at one moment he wants to focus on the diocese and the next he wants to focus on the Communion.

 

This is the discussion I keep having internally- ANiC seems welcoming, but I'd essentially be trying to help pull together a planting project with distant help, while the ACoC nearby is a bit washy on doctrine, and tbh, hasn't had an actual sermon in any of the services we've visited (+ BAS only).

 

ANiC is also generally a liturgical catastrophy about 2 steps lower on the churchmanship ladder than the much maligned C4SO in the US.

On another note, the Canadian Mission of the Orthodox Anglican Communion has expanded into Quebec recently.

 

Tell us more about that expansion into Quebec

 

The ACNA would be better off if some of their folk went to the TEC. It would be like bailing water out of your ship into the Titanic.

 

There's a mission meeting in Quebec City. They are led by a lay reader who I assume to be a postulant for holy orders. Being in Quebec the service is in French but the lay reader has excellent English. I think he was raised an Anglophone but has mostly lived in Quebec.

 

That is great news for yall

 

I agree. We need to cut ties or clean house

 

Just looked at their site. Not much info, but a *lot* of statues and images.

 

He said the focus should be on the diocese (primary) without losing sight of the parish or the national/international communion (secondary). The existence of uncanonical/invalid/illicit jurisdictions alongside the the canonical one in places like the U.S. and Canada at the diocesan level (primary) is responsible for the fracturing of the Communion at the global level (secondary). There is no inconsistency.

 

Which members of GAFCON are "uncanonical/invalid/illicit" (or does that apply to all of them), and how does one decide?

 

The original jurisdictions are the canonical ones; the breakaways are by definition irregular/schismatic, i.e., installing a bishop where one already has jurisdiction.

 

I did a search for AnIC and I got the Australian National Imans Council and The Australian Nut Industry Council. I extended the search and found Anglican Network in Canada, however I didn;t see a lot of statues and images.

 

That's because I was speaking about the OAC.

 

We have been here before. St. Athanasius addressed the poor and huddled faithful “outside the boundaries”:

"they have the buildings, but you have the faith. They can occupy our churches, but remain outside the true faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the faith? The true faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in the struggle – the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?

"You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the church by your faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the faith which has come down to you from the Apostles. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.

"Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray.”

 

The only problem is that TEC invalidates themselves with approving of heretical beliefs. Not trying to be mean when I say that but it is true. So if the choice is a valid diocese or valid beliefs always go with the valid beliefs. But then again can a heretical church be a valid church? My answer is no.