Staying in TEC.....

Discussion in 'Navigating Through Church Life' started by Celtic1, Dec 16, 2012.

  1. highchurchman

    highchurchman Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I hope this is interesting to my fellow members and my apologies to the ,owner,' for the liberty taken!


    TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2012

    An Appeal from the Continuing Anglican Churches to the ACNA and Associated Churches



    This remarkable, frank, and necessary document recently went out from the Archbishops/Metropolitans undersigned to the leaders of the ACNA and its associated churches.

    The Continuing Anglican Church movement began with the Congress of Saint Louis in 1977. The Anglican Church in North America was born in 2010. Between these two ecclesial movements there are points of contact, but there also is a great gulf fixed.
    In regard to points of contact, both of the entities concerned are movements composed of a number of imperfectly united ecclesial jurisdictions rather than perfectly united dioceses or Churches. Both understand themselves to be Anglican and to relate in positive ways to a common history and shared theological and cultural influences. Both understand themselves to have left former Church homes as an act of fidelity to the teaching of Scripture and in the face of grave aberrations in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. Both are challenged by the need to present the gospel in compelling and attractive ways to an increasingly secular and indifferent Western society.
    The gulf between us concerns mostly the changes accepted in the Episcopal Church (and the Canadian Church) between the mid-1970s and 2010. Those of us who left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in the 1970s did so due to the adoption in those years of the ordination of women to the priesthood by General Convention (1976) and General Synod (1975). More generally, in the roughly 30 years between the Congress of Saint Louis and ACNA’s formation, the people who eventually formed ACNA lived in ecclesial bodies which increasingly abandoned elements of classical Anglicanism. The precipitating cause of the founding of the ACNA was TEC’s abandonment of orthodox Christian teaching concerning homosexuality. But prior to 2010 many of those now in ACNA accepted liturgies and prayer books with few connections to classical Anglican worship and accepted female deacons, priests, and bishops contrary to the mind of all Anglicans prior to the mid-20th century.
    One of our number, in an earlier letter to Archbishop Duncan of ACNA, wrote in regard to these matters as follows:
    The notion that women can receive the sacrament of Holy Orders in any of its three parts constitutes, in our view, a revolutionary and false claim: a claim false in itself; a claim destructive of the common ministry that once united Anglicans; and, finally, a claim productive of an even broader and worse consequence. That worse consequence is the claim that Anglicans have authority to alter important matters of
    faith and order against a clear consensus in the central tradition of Catholic and Orthodox Christendom. Once such a claim is made it may be pressed into service to alter any matter of faith or morals. The revolution devours its children. Many of the clergy represented at GAFCON and now joining the ACNA seem to us to accept the flawed premise and its revolutionary claim in one matter while seeking to resist the application of the premise in the matter of homosexuality. This position seems to us to be internally inconsistent and impossible to sustain successfully over time.
    All Continuing Anglicans accept this analysis. We note that ACNA has not abandoned the putative ordination of women and that this issue deeply divides the dioceses which compose ACNA.
    While we recognize that the Churches through history and today are free to adopt a variety of liturgical forms, as they are not free to accept the ordination of women, yet we also agree that any sound Anglican body today needs to relate more positively to the classical Books of Common Prayer than is the case in many ACNA dioceses.
    Many in ACNA effectively accept elements of the revolution since the 1970s. If orthodox Anglicanism in North America is again to unite, then it can only do so on the basis of the pre-1976 state of the Church, without women clergy and with classically Anglican liturgies.
    We recognize that the Continuing Church has failed to present a united front, has failed to grow as we should, and in general has failed to present an attractive alternative to the growing heresy and absurdity of the Episcopal Church. However, we also note that against furious opposition, and often against obstacles set up by those who later formed ACNA, we have built hundreds of congregations in North America, many of which are thriving. We have established works of mercy, publications ministries, and international missions, and we have trained and ordained a new generation of able clergy.
    The Continuing Churches are said to be riven by constant conflicts and to be increasingly divided. This is not true. Those of us who are undersigned below represent the great bulk of the Continuing Church. We have among ourselves cordial relations. We cooperate on many levels and have at least as great a level of
    communion as that which exists amongst the disparate groups of ACNA. Our tendency is towards greater unity and cooperation, whereas we observe within ACNA a tendency, just beneath the surface, to divide along the fault line we have identified above (between many in ACNA and classical Anglicanism). We have no wish to deny or to minimize our own failures or divisions. But our divisions are largely matters amenable to improvement. The divisions facing ACNA are fundamental and essential.
    We call upon ACNA to heed our call to return to your classical Anglican roots. We commend to your prayerful attention the Affirmation of Saint Louis, which we firmly believe provides a sound basis for a renewed and fulfilled Anglicanism on our continent. We urge you to heed the call of Metropolitan Jonah, whose concerns we share. Anglicanism in North America cannot be both united and orthodox on a partially revolutionized basis. We call upon you to repudiate firmly any claim to alter doctrine or order against the consensus of the Catholic and Orthodox world. We call upon you to embrace the classical Prayer Book tradition. The 30 years between our formation in 1977 and yours in 2010 were years of sharp decline in TEC numbers and of growing aberrations in all areas of Church life. We call upon you to look upon all the works of those years with a much more critical eye, and to join us in returning to the doctrine, worship, and orders that preceded the intervening decades.
    Yours in Christ,
    The Right Reverend Paul Hewett, SSC
    Diocese of the Holy Cross
    The Most Reverend Walter Grundorf
    Anglican Province of America
    The Most Reverend Brian Marsh
    Anglican Church in America
    The Most Reverend Mark Haverland
    Anglican Catholic Church
    The Most Reverend Peter D. Robinson
    United Episcopal Church of North
     
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  2. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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  3. seeking.IAM

    seeking.IAM Member

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    I stay in The Episcopal Church because I find Jesus there.
     
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  4. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    I still do as well. Although I see the church in a lot of turmoil. I try to remember that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
     
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  5. Celtic1

    Celtic1 Well-Known Member

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    I understand and am sympathetic to Episcopalians in local churches who do not agree with the apostasy that's going on in the denomination. Some have been going to that local church and seem to have no other option if they want to continue to worship as Anglicans.
     
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  6. Jeff F

    Jeff F Well-Known Member

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    Your questions hits home with me. I'm not simply staying, but re-entering the ECUSA after 10 years in a Protestant Evangelical church, and possibly pursuing Holy Orders. I am probably their worst nightmare at this point, being a conservative, but I decided I would hold them to their claim of being inclusive and loving all..........even me! My decision involved a focus at the Parish level, not the church as a whole or even the Diocese, just the group God had placed around me. For them, I will dedicate myself to service, worship, and biblical study. I will lead by example, but teach in love.

    Jeff+
     
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  7. Celtic1

    Celtic1 Well-Known Member

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    I think that is a valid line of reasoning and a valid move on your part.

    Here is something I wonder about, though, and would be interested in your answer: If you knew that your bishop supported homosexual ordinations, marriages, and unions, do you think you could serve under him/her?
     
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  8. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    Jeff, do you feel comfortable giving money to an organization that may use to promote or assist abortions and to promote the homosexual lifestyle? That's the issue that keeps me up at night.
     
  9. Celtic1

    Celtic1 Well-Known Member

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    That's an issue with me, too. I could not send my money to the denomination -- unless I could designate specifically where it should go and what it should be used for.
     
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  10. Jeff F

    Jeff F Well-Known Member

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    I see my calling as preserving "Salt and Light" among the faithful, but I also realize that I may be the very small remnant mentioned in Isaiah. Serving under and being forced to perform are two totally different animals, and I'm told that in our Diocese, the choice would always be left up to the individual Priest. If it ever became a mandatory requirement, I would not participate and suffer the consequences. As far as funds being used for objectionable practices, I see my job as providing biblical advice/counseling to avoid the issue altogether, so that the funds aren't necessary, but in reality my objection would be biblical and explained in love. I can only speak for our Diocese, but the discretionary funds are primarily used for humane assistance in hurricanes, floods, and homeless shelters.

    Jeff
     
  11. Celtic1

    Celtic1 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks again, Jeff.

    How do you feel about the local church being able to own its property?
     
  12. Jeff F

    Jeff F Well-Known Member

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    I do acknowledge that this is a slippery slope. Many a small Parish have been kept afloat by the Diocese making the mortgage, insurance, and repair payments, but it has been used against a rogue parish in the past. I support the right of an individual Parish to own their building and property if they have the resources.

    Jeff
     
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  13. CatholicAnglican

    CatholicAnglican Active Member

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    I left the Anglican Church of Canada because it departed from orthodoxy and Holy Scripture and The Church Fathers, and rather went towards Universalism and New-Age erroneous doctrines contrary to the Catholic Faith. The Anglican Network in Canada upholds orthodoxy and the authority of Holy Scripture and the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith.

    According to Dr James I Packer,“Schism means unwarrantable and unjustifiable dividing of organized church bodies, by the separating of one group within the structure from the rest of the membership. Schism, as such, is sin, for it is a needless and indefensible breach of visible unity. But withdrawal from a unitary set-up that has become unorthodox and distorts the gospel in a major way and will not put its house in order… should be called not schism but realignment, doubly so when the withdrawal leads to links with a set-up that is faithful to the truth…” Dr George Egerton adds that it is those who cause the “tear in the fabric” of the communion by introducing unbiblical teaching who are schismatic
     
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