Unless the wiki is wrong, the REC is in Communion with the APA, and the APA is in Communion with the ACC.
Well, I have come to find out that he is a self-proclaimed expert. I learned this from others in the REC. He even speaks of "errors" within the REC that are being mistaught and out-of-context. So, I have ignored any further contact with him. In other words, I have blocked him.
From my understanding, there is a strong minority contingent within the REC that pushes for what they call a more "Reformed", "Protestant", "Calvinist" form of Anglicanism "as established" at the Reformation. This is to say that they have identified several features of the so-called "Anglican Aesthetic" that they view as Catholic accretions and want to jettison these features in a quasi-iconoclastic way, like some other Reformed traditions (e.g. orthodox Scottish Presbyterianism).
It is the "deserve" bit that is jumping out at me. As far as this lifelong Anglican knows nobody "deserves", We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
To examine the utter extremes: In my experience, a few Anglo 'Catholic' parisioners have the notion that the priest has to believe in transubstantiation, be properly ordained by a man, and receive communion FIRST, before 'HE', (and it can only be a 'HE'), is fit to give them communion. Otherwise it hasn't 'worked' when the bells rang and the bread and wine turned into flesh and blood, it couldn't have unless all these critera had been meticulously met for them. It's that kind of ultra 'Roman Catholic', superstition, according to article 28, that has no place in the Anglican church. From the other side of the theological spectrum comes the notion that vestments are 'bad', incense is 'bad', liturgy is 'bad', crucifixes are 'bad', icons are 'bad' and unless one has 'given one's life to Jesus at a Billy Graham Rally one can't be a real 'Christian'. Being baptised as a baby is just not enough. The Anglican church could do without that kind judgmental protestant spirit as well. WE are none of us worthy to receive it, even the one who celebrates it, but all of us sinners are counted by God, in Christ, as 'worthy' to receive the spirit of Christ into our souls through the sacraments of bread and wine. It says so in the prayer of consecration. .
I think what you mean is, one could be disqualified from having the Anglican badge on this forum. But as for being an Anglican, it is a rather broad church. I can sympathize with Rami's sentiment.
I have nothing against infant baptism, it is a fine symbolic practice, it was done to me. I accept it as a Sacrament. I did not intend to suggest that the amount of water or a lack of full immersion was an inadequacy in itself. There is a part later on in life, where faith of one's own choice must be going on, it is Jesus, the Holy Ghost, that is required, and faith in Him. That part can be done without big charismatic rallies.
Ahh! you are now talking about the ONE baptism should refer to in the Nicene Creed. THAT is what baptisms in infancy are leading one to, and what is promised by God at the time. THAT can often happen even sometime AFTER confirmation. .
I had my 'Anglican forum' badge stripped from me, but I don't mind. I'm still an ACTUAL Anglican. However what Rami and I have posted since has clarified our understanding of the matter I think. Yours, mine and Rami's that is. .
It's not just 'symbolic', if even one a parent is believing, it's sacramental as you pointed out. If you are a child of believers, your eventual 'own choice', was inevitable, because God had promised your believing parent(s), that it would be so. You didn't choose Jesus yourself, God chose you for Jesus. Yet it is paradoxically also true that God enabled you personally to make a life-giving choice, because THAT was what HE wanted. Thy will be done on earth. Serve Him well. .
Wow. This thread is out there. I realize these are just opinions but, gee whiz, from this old boys perspective, schisms rum amuck.
Oh, yes indeed! Which is precisely why I never asked for a badge. I know I would've lost it anyway. Romans 4 explains that God accounts (imputes) His righteousness through faith (to those who trust in Him). I suppose I've come to see that God might impute righteousness in baptism of an infant through the faith of the infant's parents, as they sort of "stand in" for their child. I'm not 100% convinced of it, because the Bible contains all we need to know concerning the means of salvation (says Article 6) and the Bible does not say with specificity that one can be saved by baptism (or damned by the lack thereof), although some believe it is inferred. So I'm sort of 'on the fence.' The baptized infant still must adopt personal faith in Jesus as his Savior and Lord at some point later in life anyhow, and this seems to place the child on the same footing as the child of Christian (congregational Protestant) parents who never have the child baptized (but instead perhaps have a 'baby dedication' ceremony). This makes me question the efficacy of paedobaptism. And I have some doubt about the wisdom of paedobaptism because I'm concerned that it might cause such a person to grow up assuming that the baptism itself made him a Christian, and as a result of having placed his trust in his baptism he might neglect to come to a true and living faith in Christ as Savior. So, I am still mulling all of this over in my mind. As John Jewel wrote, "We must seek salvation in Christ alone, and not in any outward thing." Considering the pattern laid down in the Book of Acts, can there be any doubt that the act of submitting to be baptized is an "outward thing"?
Not if that outward thing is a sacrament. A sacrament is only 'outward' in the fact of its physical existence. It's spiritual content is 'inward' and invisible. In baptism the inward 'invisible' content is the precious blood of Christ in which (through the faith of one or both PARENTS, who have a Covenant with the Lord God themselve(s), through their own faith in Jesus Christ, who is the ratifier of the New Covenant, in his blood), the infant becomes a 'servant' of the Lord according to God's promise to the believing parents. God is their God and will be the God of their progeny too. If neither of them actually HAVE a covenant with the Lord, there is probably no 'inward' and invisible content to the sacrament, but that would depend entirely on God, not anyone else on earth. God can regenerate anyone God calls and chooses whether he has a covenant with the parents or not. I suspect, through ignorance, of what it entails for its future, many people who bring their infant to the waters of baptism, have no idea what they are doing to or for their little bundles of joy. Martyrdom itself could be involved, as 'their pride and joy' is enfolded in God's will, as it was in the case of its new Master. We need to drop the idea that we at some time in our lives must 'choose Jesus'. We don't and can't. God chooses US, and makes Jesus our Master. As his servants we are His property, he has purchased us with a price. He has spilt his own blood for us, we are precious in his sight. "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day." .
No, we should not "drop the idea" of choosing. Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live. If there is no choice, then God violates free will and forces people to believe in Him. If there is no choice, the Great Commission was superfluous; Jesus' exhortations to various people that they needed to believe in Him were unnecessary, and would even have been absurd since He must have been aware that the listeners literally had no choice and would either believe or disbelieve in controlled order. Furthermore, if there is no choice, then "eternal security" is rendered correct (no one can lose their salvation) because there would be no way for a person to be a true Christian and subsequently stop being a true Christian (the person would never have been a true Christian to begin with). It is true that God, before He created the universe, foreknew which would be His children and which would not. That is because He foreknew the choices each would make. Every person with sufficiently developed mental capacity possesses the ability to choose what he will believe. One can evaluate evidence and choose to believe, for example: that people are basically good or basically bad that tomorrow it will be mostly sunny or mostly cloudy that God exists or that he does not exist that Jesus died for one's sins or that Jesus was a fictitious character that CO2 is good for the environment or bad for the environment Thus, every such person possesses the ability to form beliefs. That basic ability to believe in A or in B is essentially faith. One can have faith in the message of those who say CO2 is bad, or one can have faith in the message that CO2 is good. One might have faith in a weatherman's forecast of 'no rain,' or one might not (and that person might take an umbrella). This ability to believe, the ability to have faith, the capacity to evaluate information and make a choice based on what one believes to be true, is a gift from God. God gives each of us a measure of faith, a measure sufficient to enable one to choose what he will or won't believe. Rom 12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Thus we make choices, not only about whether we believe in Jesus as our Redeemer from sin, but also about whether we will act in obedience to His will as the Spirit leads and enables us. Were the latter not so, Jesus and the Apostles were wasting breath and ink with all their exhortations about holy living; we all are puppets on God's strings and whatever He wills, will be.
So according to what you have said here, what does that leave for God to give Jesus to 'raise up at the last day'. You seem to imagine that we are not God's property to give to anyone, let alone to Christ His only Son. Can we say, unless we 'give ourselves and ALLOW God into our hearts', God has nothing belonging to Him to give? Surely you can't be thinking that we have 'freedom' in rebellion against - 'He that hath made us, and not we ourselves'. Can the pot say to the potter "Why hast thou made me thus"? Regeneration comes only from The Lord and HE it is who decides who will be regenerate, not us. God has made even the wicked for the day of trouble. You have a seriously erronious assumption if thinking that we have the freedom to choose whether we serve and obey God. We have a bunch of idiots over here in the UK who are going round shouting "He's not MY king" about His Highness Charles III. They seem to imagine it's not HIS kingdom they are living in, but theirs. Same with idiots who think that they can give two fingers up to God, and God should be jolly pleased when they finally show a little respect and "Give their lives willingly to Jesus", as if that 'seals the deal' from their point of view. Even though they've spent their lives in rebellion against God and warred with his elect. You seem to think obedience to God is 'optional' while we have 'free will'. Sure we can repent and confess and be renewed and healed and regenerated, but we can't decide to even do that ourselves, while we are dead in trespasses and sin, without the aid of The Spirit of God enabling us. You seem to think it an imposition on defenceless infants to make them servants of their own saviour, to fight under his banner against sin, the world and the devil. You seem to be claiming it would be a violation of their rights to remain, without God in the world, outside the covenant, and it's promises to them. You seem to put human freedom to sin above what wonderful freedom is to be found in serving Christ in the household of faith. We are doing our infants a favour according to God's covenant promises to us believers, not subjecting them to a life of servitude to a 'Hard Master', against their will and personal choice. .
The APA and REC are in joint affirmation (assuming " The Joint Affirmation of the [REC] and the [APA] October 4, 2001" (Affirmation) is still a valid document). There are possibly some errors within the church, some of which are borne more by their affiliation with the ACNA. The Affirmation, however, affirms certain dogmas and shared practices between the two bodies. In what little I have studied the subject (there is one church down the road from me near Sewanee), the REC appears (certainly the Pastor from Paul's Reform) to be far more reformed (a la Calvin/Zwingli ), but across the board a logical, subsequent union with the Continuing Movement. Anglican is a broad faith. That is very unfortunate. Point your home to the United Kingdom...boom...you are Anglican. But to put it in context, that is like saying a woman in San Fransisco, California is the same as a man from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A person in St Louis or Nashville would know the difference. In Newbiggin? No, so much. It's not the chap's fault; he had no reason to know. It is in this context I have considerable objection to everyone being "Anglican." They are not but very few outside the Church know the difference. The ones who profess to be "Anglican" seem not to understand the difference (shocker - if you are Anglican you are Catholic). The realities are the further you depart from the Western Faith as expressed in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church consistent with the Anglican expression founded around 1549 then you are - in my opinion - less and less "Anglican" but more Protestant...with vestments. If you dont believe in the real presence (some call it transubstantiation when the Romans try to explain how it becomes the Body and Blood of God), then you are not Anglican. If you believe women can be priests, then you are not Anglican. If you don't believe in the regeneration provided in baptism (and that includes with water) and it may need to be done more than once "to take" then you are not Anglican. If you don't believe in free will then you are not an Anglican. Baptism is not mere symbolism. It literally washes away original sin and introduces us to God's grace. I cannot elaborate on it any more than what is written in Matthew and Romans and a statement of doctrine as written in Article XXVII and practiced by the English faithful since the late 6th century (who picked it up some 600 years before that). I am unfamiliar with anyone who gave a six-year-old a Bible and said, "Here. Read this. It's the Word of the Lord. When you are done, go figure out Christianity for yourself." It takes teaching, hopefully from a learned individual. Certainly I start reasoning deductively with the Bible. Then, I defer to the Church, with its embedded authority, as the basis for all my understanding. Do I ask questions of my priest? My Bishop? Yes and yes. Some of the answers I like.....Finally, I reason inductively (with the aid of some of the stronger theological minds of our faith) if I still have questions. For example, I have Bicknell's Thirty-nine Articles in my library to better understand Church dogma. Do I get it all? No (Election). Do I think it comes up short (transubstantiation). Yes. Was some of it politically motivated? Of course. So much to mull and understand but it does get me closer to the truth. Thank you, Tiffy. You are on fire in several of your posts; many of which left me saying "Amen". Serving the Lord is perfect freedom, so says it in the Collect for Peace. Unfortunately, it is my opinion God's grace needs to meet with Man's free will. But as you wander around in free will, not following the word of God, you are not free at all but, instead, "in the body of this death." Grace is the ointment for man to realize his greater self and is part and parcel of the formula for oneness with Christ and life everlasting. To think it is all in God's hands is rather Calvinistic, a theological position not very Anglican at all. Thank you Heavenly Father for the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Church of our Lord, Jesus Christ. And the Oxford Movement. Amen.