Can the Episcopal Church be brought back?

I try not to say to much about the Anglican Tradition in North America.

• TEC is in the Communion, and is clearly progressive, and speaks of the 39 as historic documents that seem no longer to have any real relevance.
• ACNA is not in the Communion, is generally conservative, and sees the 39 as historic documents at the centre of Anglicanism
• ACIA not in the communion and is 1928 and Anglo Catholic
• ACIC & The Anglican Church Traditional - St Louis Agreement Churches
• The Anglican Church of the Americas ??? may have ceased or amalgamated
• Anglican Orthodox Church
• The Reformed Episcopal Church
• The United Anglican Church

and that is just a few of them. This fracturing and schism is clearly outside the purposes of the Church and counterproductive to the propagation of the gospel.

There really should not be too many things that we allow to divide us. At the moment there are a number of hot issues that I can think of:

• Ordination of Women to the Sacred Ministry
• Mono Gender Marriage
• Human Sexuality and the living out of Human Sexuality

We recognise that the things that drive the division are

• Our failure to have an agreed approach to Biblical Hermeneutics
• Our failure to keep to the agreed principles of communion - accepting one thing and Lambeth and then doing something different
• Some very loose/liberal understandings of law and grace

And the question we ask is how do we come back from schism? In Australia the Methodists, the Presbyterians and the Congregationalist joined to make one Church, so then we had the Continuing Presbyterians, The Continuing Methodists, The Continuing Congregationalists, and the Uniting Church.

Divergent views on important matters is the home territory of Anglicanism. It is at the heart of the Elizabethan Settlement, we we agree on the essentials and allow room on the margins. The difficulty we have is defining the essentials, and part of that is found in our failing to have a agreed hermeneutic approach, and maybe we shouldn't.

The Anglican Church of Australia has tabled a discussion on mono gender marriage and the series of essays canvassing both side of the argument throw this into sharp relief. I think everyone is aware this carries with it the potential for schism.

1. Uphold our Bishops in prayer, make make sure they know we look to them as guardians of the truth
2. Pray for our Parish Clergy and ask them to explain how what they might say sits with the tradition
3. Yes we do need this, in a very real and contemporary way.

 

The difficulty we have is defining the essentials, and part of that is found in our failing to have a agreed hermeneutic approach, and maybe we shouldn't.

I think this statement is at the core of the issue.

As a side note, I can understand the issues/touch choices that the Continuing Church's in/of Australia had to make about not joining a United Church. Personally I have some problems with Presybyterian/Calvinist theology. For example, I was brought up/atteneded a Lutheran Church for a good chunk of my life. When the ELCA entered into Full Communion with the Presbyterians, that was kind of the last straw for me as Calvinist/Reformed Theology around the Eucherist is differant than Lutheran theology around it. How can you have pulpit exchange/recognition of clergy where the theology differs so much , let alone unifying into one body ???

 

On point 2, however, consider the relative inaction of these courts. The heretics to recently be removed from TEC consisted of that Canoness at the Cathedral in Seattle, who was removed after expresding the idea that she was an Episcopalian Christian Muslim, who believed in Muhammed as a prophet and accepted the Quran, and a senior clergyman in Michigan who I believe was the bishop elect, who styled himself a Buddhist Christian after the fashion of George Lucas (who calls himself a “Methodist Buddhist”), and in so doing outraged the relatively traditional members of his diocese-elect.

On the other hand, an ecclesiastical court convened in the 1960s astonishingly cleared Bishop James Pike, the ultraliberal, Gnostic-leaning Bishop of San Francisco, who was a pioneering “televangelist,”,expressed doubts about the Trinity (“We need fewer beliefs and more belief”), was intimate friends with Philip K. Dick, whose encounter with a “pink laser beam” in the 1970s allegedly transmitted by a satellite sent from somewhere in Canis Major that granted him mental superpowers and caused him to embrace Gnostic theology, eulogized the late bishop in his final book, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, in which a character based on his friend reincarnates as an infant. Bishop Pike had died tragically in Israel of dehydration when his car broke down in a remote desert while he and his wife were looking for evidence of the “historic Jesus,” without a spare water supply. I believe he went to get help and expired in the heat, while his wife remained in the vehicle and was thankfully rescued by sorme Bedouins.

Also, characters like Bishop John Shelby Spong and the former Presiding Bishop never faced a heresy trial. Nor did the late Fr. Boucher, who famously called for the Creeds to be removed from the liturgy because they interrupted the “flow,” and for a scriptural citation in support of his view, quoted the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, thus refuting his own argument rather splenidly.

But if you can think of a surefire way to prosecute heretics within the ECUSA, or even part of it, aside from just blatant apostates (the Muslim canoness at the Seattle Cathedral, and the Buddhist bishop in Michigan), that could be epic. Perhaps attempt to prosecute them in the few regions of the US that still have traditionalist bishops?

 

Because the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches Says So!

Also, ecumenism, peace and love, tolerance, universalism, progressive theology and so on.

If you object to the United or Uniting churches and do not join them you must be some kind of bigotted traditionalist who has no place at the table but is to be kicked to the curb by the ushers, in order to make way for the sexual perverts, financially corrupt bishops and church administrators, politicians, who desire the image of going to church but can’t risk the controversy of a minister who actually preaches the Gospel, and other such notorious evil livers.

But in Anglicanism and other traditional churches like the Orthodox, the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer and the equivalent canons elsewhere correctly allow the rector to repulse notorious evil livers from the Eucharist. And fortunately, only two Anglican churches in the world have actually joined Uniting Churches, the Church of South India and the Church of North India. And these represented more of a case of the smaller Protestant churches being absorbed by the Anglicans than vice versa. Both are members of the Anglican communion, along with the reformed Mar Thoma Syrian Church, which is in full communion with the Malankara Independent Syrian Church, also known as Thoyizoor, the smallest of the three unreformed Syriac Orthodox churches in India.

Curiously enough, Roman Rite Catholic priests can’t do this, for some reason, IIRC even if they know the person has been excommunicated, at least, not without special clearance from the bishop.

 

I was under the impression that in contrast to the other provinces, the low church Anglican Province of New South Wales is extremely conservative.

 

One Diocese does not a Province make.

 

ACNA is very much in the Communion, I'm not sure where you get this from? We don't need to seek the approval of Canterbury, because Canterbury is not the Papacy, the fact is that we have the majority of the Communion on the side of ACNA, and there you have it

 

ACNA is not in the Anglican Communion because it is not recognized by the Anglican Consultative Council. I don't think ACNA has ever even applied for membership (although +Duncan tried mightily to get the favor of +Rowan Williams). I get sick of hearing this nonsense of how the Nigerians, Ugandans, Rwandans, whatever recognize us so we're in the Communion. That's some kind of backdoor approach to being in the Communion.

The Orthodox Anglican Communion is recognized by the Tanzanians. We don't use that as a shoe string to claim membership in the Anglican Communion. There are rules to follow and steps to take to be 'in the Communion.' And being in the Communion means recognition from Canterbury.

 

This is also how Orthodoxy works. A primus inter pares, not a primus sine paribus.

 

. Perhaps attempt to prosecute them in the few regions of the US that still have traditionalist bishops?[/QUOTE]

Are there even any traditionalist Bishops left in the ECUSA/TEC ??? I live in Seattle and was aware of the Muslim Canon that was how shall we say "fired off" ???

 

Please accept my apology, that was not my purpose or intent.

 

Sorry, my answer was a bit short. The Anglican Church of Australia has 23 Dioceses organised into 6 Provinces (essentially the states).

VICTORIA
1. Gippsland
2. Wangaratta
3. Melbourne
4. Bendigo
5. Ballarat

SOUTH AUSTRALIA
6. The Murray
7. Adelaide
8. Willochra

NEW SOUTH WALES
9. Sydney
10. Canberra Goulburn
11. Riverina
12. Bathurst
13. Newcastle
14. Armidale
15. Grafton

QUEENSLAND
16. Brisbane
17. Rockhampton
18. North Queensland
19. Northern Territory

WESTERN AUSTRALIA
20. North West Australia
21. Perth
22. Bunbury

TASMANIA
23. Tasmania​

It is a mistake to think that the Provinces have a great deal of meaning, as all 23 Diocese are full participants in the General Synod, and all Diocesan Bishops have equal standing in the council of Bishops, the Primate being first among equals.

The Diocese of Sydney is often referred to world wide as being 'low church', and indeed it most certainly was, being the only Diocese I am aware of where in order to be granted a licence you have to formally promise not to wear 'the vestment'. A lot of people and clergy in the Diocese embrace a theology of propositional revelation, which is probably not accepted elsewhere. The Diocese has strong movements against clergy wear anything in the way of robes at all, and considerable movements arguing for lay presidency. So you may find that whilst they are happy for a lay person to celebrate the Holy Communion, they would exclude any woman in priests orders from anywhere else. My view is that there is much in the Diocese of Sydney that does not connect well with the Historic Anglican Tradition, may many there who would think Zwingli too catholic.

I do note, and with great hope, under the guidance of the present Archbishop the mood in the Diocese has been far more identifiably Anglican in its approach. The origins of the geographical divide between diocese along churchmanship lines probably relates in part to the settlement of the various Dioceses. Sydney came to be populated in the heights of the Irish Potato Famine, so many of its founders were Church of Ireland. Newcastle, 90 minutes to the north would founded in the wake of the Oxford Movement. Whilst origins don't determine the whole of history, sometimes there is a remnant lingering, and whilst a lot of water has traversed the Hawkesbury River in that time, it does remain the boundary. and the bridge is sometimes called 'check-point chasuble'.

I reference to my initial response, I acknowledge that in the case of Tasmania, one Diocese does a Province make, however there is a lot of history in that story.

 

This is very interesting. It is rather depressing to note some of the disconnect in Sydney; doesn’t the 1552 BCP and the Cranmerian tradition positively mandate that priests wear a cassock and surplice? I was under the impression that a cassock, surplice, and a black, red or for a bishop, purple, tippet, along with a canterbury cap was everywhere accepted as proper attire for Anglican clergy. And in the US, historically Congregationalist and Presbyterian ministers wore black robes with preaching tabs, like those worn by English barristers. Indeed if memory serves the clerical collar was a Presbyterian invention. Later they switched to doctoral style gowns with hoods; Dr. James Kennedy of the famed Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, which as alas been ruined by his successor (the danger of churches without a mandatory liturgy that expresses the voice of the church in order to make parishes less dependent on having a good pastor), wore a doctoral gown with the traditional colors of theology and philosophy, which was also carefully color coordinated with the robes of his choir.

 

https://sydneyanglicans.net/seniorclergy

Sadly in some parishes you are doing well is you get your clergyman in a collared shirt (and I mean any kind of a collar - though you may get a collared polo shirt) Thankfully there is a bit of a drift back to more 'normal' church.

 

Symphorian, thank you for the liturgical answer to an important thread.

 

There's popery, and then there's potpourri....and I know which one smells better!

 

The episcopal parish I associate with here in my place in central Kentucky appears to be in some kind of suspended animation via the Internet. There is a group that meets and prays and studies scripture. And the clergy asks for support.

Suspended Animation:
The temporary cessation of most vital functions without death, as in a dormant seed or a hibernating animal.

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For my part, I listen to English choral music and between prayers post an encouraging word or two for our parish remnant.

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As I write this post, I have CD 1 from the following series in my Sony CD player.

Early Choral Music at Trinity College, Cambridge, director of the series is Richard Marlow.​

The six CDs have the following reference in the series. Being a retired business man here in the wilderness, I am not sure what the following CD titles refer to. But here they are:

Lasso
Victoria
Sweelinck
Monteverdi
Praetorius
Schutz​

Like I just wrote, I am currently listening to "Lasso."

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Earlier this morning I had this spinning in my CD player:

The Very Best of John Rutter
The Cambridge Singers
City of London Sinfornia
2011
Distributed by
Decca​

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And I often spin a CD recommended a few years ago by Symphorium

Life Journey
Dave Bainbridge and David Fitzgerald
2009
Distributed by
www.lindisfarne-scriptorium.co.uk​

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So I place my support to the music archives across the pond, and to those of you attempting to educate and lead us in the wilderness.

Thank You.

Cooper