Can the Episcopal Church be brought back?

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

anglican74 said: ↑

I've been meaning to have this conversation with you all...
There are several orthodox and well-meaning Episcopal church members among us here, and I can't seem to get a straight answer for how they hope to bring their Province back and wrest it from the control of heretics

Once the wrong people are in charge, won't they stay in charge and just perpetuate their ilk, deeper and deeper through the church ranks?

Something similar is occurring through the US Catholic Conference as well, and just the latest example came across my screen this morning:

The Catholics have a famous and ultra-restorationist priest in Chicago... he runs a parish, for 20 years has formed a religious order to form more men like him, the young people flock to his parish and online sermons, so he seems to be winning, right? And yet...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/85do7z/cdl_cupich_removes_pastor_of_st_john_cantius/

Instantly, it's over.. the Restorationist dream in that part of the country is over

Twenty years in the making, over in a fortnight
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Anglican74,
Thank you for your post above (March 18, 2018).

Cooper

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

Flanders said: ↑

Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples. The Roman Church in Belgium had the fairly successful “Fraternity of the Holy Apostles”, founded in 2013 under the previous, somewhat more conservative, archbishop. They were assigned a parish in Brussels, which they revitalized. The new archbishop disbanded the fraternity in 2016, their remaining seminarians had reapply for the diocesan seminaries and a transitional deacon was refused priestly ordination. More notably, of course, there’s the closure of Mariawald Abbey, the decline of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, &c.

And yet people keep trying. Their efforts seem Sisyphean to me…
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Flanders,
The photos in the links you posted are truly miraculous. For myself, I often seek out quiet and secluded places of prayer, as did our Lord Jesus. One such place was a clothes closet in my home, which I emptied and installed a prie deux (prayer bench), a holy place where I spent many hours in the dark on my knees.

Cooper

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

Lowly Layman said: ↑

With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
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Thank you for including a holy signature in your posts.

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

Anglican04 said: ↑

RCC is in shambles man, I've been on their forums and it's constant bickering over the Papacy, if Francis was validly ordained, or if he is even the real pope. Not to mention at least 40% of them calling Amoris Laetitia, Lumen Gentium, and other Vatican II documents heretical. Some of them say it is even worse than the reformation because you cannot differentiate modernists from traditionalists, where in the reformation era, it easy to see who was reformed of papist.

Do I think it (TEC) can be brought back? As @LowlyLayman stated, anything is possible with God. However, being that we do not know His Holy Will, I cannot be sure. Maybe he wishes for ACNA to take over and REC to collapse into it. It would take a major turn around for TEC to become actually Anglican. Tighten up on the contraception, abortion, gay marriage, gay rights, and the promotion spiritually healthy things is a must. Even then, they would have to build up for the thousands of members they lost.
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Anglican04,
Your post certainly leads to prayer and contemplation.
Thank you.

Cooper

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

Cameron said: ↑

The Roman Catholic Church has had several communities of priests who have suffered due do "incidents" which I pray will be over swiftly and without scandal. This is the plight of Christianity amongst influential humanity - the Devil's influence. He will not win, but he's trying his best.

The Episcopal Church can save itself. Yes. It seems as though, however, to be in the claws of relativism and has lost its sense of Catholicity. The Episcopal Church is controlled by many men and women who were formed in seminaries that sought to imbue them with a utilitarian philosophy - whatever the people feel, it is the voice of God, and if it makes them happy, then it must be ordained. To me I get a sense of "God, you created us - then deal with it" from the Episcopal Church, as well as from the Anglican Church of Canada (ask me about that crowd). They've given up. They've simply given up.

Communities of priests are being tried. So are entire Churches by their leadership - another assault from the enemy.

We must remember something. The original evil was a sweet fruit. We would not commit evil if it was ugly. This is why the Episcopal Church has fallen so quickly, morally. Perhaps they don't recognise the evil? Perhaps they're too quick to eat the fruit that tastes so sweet?
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Cameron,
Thank you for your post.
Cooper

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

JoeLaughon said: ↑

As said earlier, anything is possible. The Arians were once the majority of the Church. Error, superstition and outright ignorance were rampant in England prior to the Reformation. The social conditions in England were heinous before the evangelical movement of the Victorian era.
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Joe Laughon,
Thank you for your signature -- "Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you." -- George Whitfield.

Cooper
Sometimes I feel the need to be a monk in a beehive cell on Skellig Michael.

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

JoeLaughon said: ↑

It sounds crass but I think the answer will be found in the next 30-50 years or so due to pure demography. TEC is dying on the vine due to aging parishioners that simply cannot be replaced. By contrast, at least from what I recall from my reading, is that the few dioceses that remain fruitful are those most orthodox or at least tolerant of orthodox Episcopalians. My (optimistic) guess is that in the next 100 years, ACNA and the few elements left of TEC and the ACC will reunite.
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A few years ago I switched from TEC to ACNA here in my place in the wilderness (Kentucky). I really wanted the switch in place to be God's will for my path here on planet Earth. I got cold feet or something. I lost sight of the ancient path. Now I stumble to be back where I was.

Cooper

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

Lowly Layman said: ↑

I don't think Our Lord will let TEC die as long as even a few of His sheep are found there. Semper reformandum...a reformation within TEC is already at work. A change is coming.
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Amen.

Cooper · Jul 27, 2020

Aidan said: ↑

How can Anglicans call themselves Catholic when there is no clear consensus of opinion as to what being Anglican means?
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I personally want to do what I can to help bring about what Saint Aidan and other Saints also believed. But it is such a hard thing to do. Lately, I have been reflecting on the book Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder, by Evelyn Waugh.

Epilogue of Brideshead Revisited, which was posted on Wikipedia in 2012.
"The plot concludes in the early spring of 1943 (or possibly 1944 – the date is disputed). Charles is "homeless, childless, middle-aged and loveless". He has become an army officer and finds himself unexpectedly billeted at Brideshead, which has been taken into military use. He finds the house damaged by the army, but the private chapel, closed after Lady Marchmain's death in 1926, has been reopened for the soldiers' worship. It occurs to him that the efforts of the builders – and, by extension, God's efforts – were not in vain, although their purposes may have appeared, for a time, to have been frustrated."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brideshead_Revisited

I have an Audible version of Brideshead Revisited on my Kindle to listen to when I finish the current listen on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

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Can the Episcopal Church be brought back?

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