I'm currently a member of the Church of England, receiving Episcopal oversight from a traditionalist bishop who rejects the ordination of women. This is all well and good, but if I go anywhere outside my parish I immediately encounter female clergy, thus prohibiting me from recieving communion and partaking in any other activity which requires a priest. So, do any of you see the benefit in remaining in the CofE under this "church within a church" arrangement, or would you recommend moving to a continuing Anglican church? It's incredibly saddening not being able to even attend my own cathedral for a celebration of Holy Communion or trust in my diocesan bishop (or my archbishop, Welby). Yet at the same time, I'm aware that we have a work to do in converting the church back to orthodoxy, and perhaps that's best done from the inside? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated
Unfortunately, England's continuing Anglican scene seems to be primarily a collection of bishops with little or no diocese. FCE has about 20 congregations and is far more evangelical than you are probably accustomed to. ACC under Bp. Mead has no more than 10. TAC is falling apart in England. Whatever else is around is a farce. Most of the continuers seem to be concentrated in Southern England as well. I will withhold my opinion of AMiE but they are not a continuing jurisdiction.
I don't see any future for the CofE, to put it bluntly. Inertia is a law of physics. I sympathize with those who wish to apply enough friction to halt the inertia. But as I see it, the inertia is not just internal in the CofE, the leadership of the CofE is also committed to the inertia direction of the wider society. Do you see that reversing course anytime soon? A small amount of friction has little effect on such a great and heavy mass which already contains so much movement. I'm somewhat familiar with the continuing situation in England. But I think it all comes down to location, location, location. If any of these groups has a community near you, you can check it out. If it's great, great. If it sucks, too bad, don't go back. You can PM me if you want particular details.
When the CofE decided to ordain female priests, they let in the Trojan Horse. Once women are in, they will of course vote for anything that involves more women taking part (quite apart from liberal men who think that women should be equal in role). Female bishops was just the next step. Next thing will be a female archbishop of Canterbury or York (heaven help us). And (this has already been tried in North Wales, but thankfully it failed), some of these women bishops and priests are striving to root out any male priest who does not agree with women's ordination. And there seems little chance of a reversal, unless there is a real revival like in Ezra and Nehemiah's days. My husband and I have decided that we don't go to any services with women priests. If we happened to go somewhere where there was one and we didn't know about it beforehand, we would sit tight and not receive communion. If there was a female bishop, we would walk out. About two years ago we went to a FCE service and it was so evangelical that it was awful. There was not any resemblance of anything Anglican at all. So we just go to our local, traditional, small churches with male priests, and pray for the Lord to return soon!
That gave me a chuckle and this is why: There is a Facebook group for continuing Anglicans and one of the FCE bishops is a member. He made nearly exactly that same criticism of an AMiE mission he had visited a few months ago.
What really needs to occur, is for an alternate, orthodox Anglican body, to be established that has some legitimacy. I pray that is what is going on here with the ACNA (even though I have some issues with that body). All of the various "Continuing" churches are so small and fractured that they offer no worthwhile alternative to TEC in the US. I know Continuers won't agree with me about that, or they might mention how several of them are growing closer, but the fact remains that having 20 or more little bodies is both sad and ineffective. You have a global, Anglican Communion, much of which is going off the rails theologically. What is needeed is a global alternate Anglican Communion for the orthodox. Perhaps GAFCON is it? I don't know. GAFCON seems too evangelical and low-Church to be truly representative of historical Anglicanism, but time will tell. This alternate Communion has to be true to historical Anglicanism, in that it must provide for low, broad, high expressions of Anglicanism. Otherwise, it will be a fundamentalist evangelical body that likes robes and ritual; Calvinists with crosiers or Pentecostals with Prayer Books.
My province is also part of GAFCON. The issue of women's ordination popped up some time before I joined the Anglican church and it was voted against. This thread has been helpful to get me thinking about this issue should it come up again.