A Church within a church for conservative Anglicans

[graceandpeace]

A friendly reminder for everyone:

Please do not refer to the Episcopal church or its ministers as corrupt, heretical, etc. If you are not an Anglican member, you may post in fellowship, but you may not come into our forum & insult one of the member churches or debate it's beliefs. Those are site rules & it seems needed to reiterate that fact.

The OP has already been answered in full, which is A) conservatives are already welcome in TEC & B) if you disagree with that then there are continuing churches & ACNA already in existence.

The idea in the OP amounts to starting yet another denomination, which is always possible but not likely to be done in TEC.

Debates over women's ordination, Bible versions, etc have been done ad nauseum on this website & the reality is, faithful Christians disagree. As an aside, the NRSV is not "mandatory" for Episcopalians, there are other Bible versions authorized for use within the denomination.

 

[Albion]

A friendly reminder for everyone:

Please do not refer to the Episcopal church or its ministers as corrupt, heretical, etc. If you are not an Anglican member, you may post in fellowship, but you may not come into our forum & insult one of the member churches or debate it's beliefs. Those are site rules & it seems needed to reiterate that fact.

The OP has already been answered in full, which is A) conservatives are already welcome in TEC & B) if you disagree with that then there are continuing churches & ACNA already in existence.

The idea in the OP amounts to starting yet another denomination, which is always possible but not likely to be done in TEC.

OK, I said that myself; but to be fair to the OP, the idea there was to avoid having to do that. Most of us think you can't have your ecclesiastical cake and eat it too, but that's what the OP was hoping would be possible if approached in the way described.

 

[gordonhooker]

Our Lords message is a message of love of ALL creation and the inclusion of ALL creation, when people start arguing about who is in and who is out (normally those who think like them are the ones that are in) and then the people who try and say the the KJV of the Bible is the only true and correct God inspired version of the Bible; I simply turn off and wander away.

I am going to buy out of this one now...

 

[rakovsky]

Is having monastic orders against Anglicanism? I seem to think they were shut down centuries ago.

 

[Deegie]

Is having monastic orders against Anglicanism? I seem to think they were shut down centuries ago.

They were pretty much all shut down (and had their property confiscated) during the English Reformation. But they are back in some places.

http://anglicansonline.org/resources/orders.html

 

[Padres1969]

They were pretty much all shut down (and had their property confiscated) during the English Reformation. But they are back in some places.

http://anglicansonline.org/resources/orders.html

Indeed many orders made a come back during and after the Oxford movement in the mid1800's when Anglo-Catholicism became more common. My own church has two brothers from the Society of St. Paul in residence.

 

[Wgw]

Is having monastic orders against Anglicanism? I seem to think they were shut down centuries ago.

No; there is an Anglican Benedictine monastery (Order of the Holy Cross) near where I live. There used to be an Anglican convent as well, but they sadly died off; their last member sold their property to the monks after the monastic estate was destroyed in wildfires several years ago.

 

[Albion]

It's not against Anglicanism, but in truth monasteries and convents play a very small role in Anglican Christianity. There are a few in the USA which have a degree of fame, you might say, but that's about it. The main reason they are spoken about is because they are so uncommon.

 

[Wgw]

It's not against Anglicanism, but in truth monasteries and convents play a very small role in Anglican Christianity. There are a few in the USA which have a degree of fame, you might say, but that's about it. The main reason they are spoken about is because they are so uncommon.

There are several highly regarded aanglican monasteries in the UK, also. Dom Gregory Dix hailed from one.

There are also Anglican Franciscans.

I once thought about forming an order of Anglican Dominicans within the Episcopal Church as a sort of organized rebellion intended to promote Orthodoxy, reconciliation with the Orthodox, and traditional Anglo-Carholic values. I still love Anglicanism so much that I might actually try and do it some day, if I can get a blessing from my Orthodox starets (which seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened).

Actually, by the way, I realized I had posted this thread to discuss that very thing.

 

[Wgw]

Sure. There are quite a few Franciscan, Dominican, Benedictine, and other religious orders in the various Anglican churches, but all of them (to my knowledge) are authorized by the church and have a bishop as their "protector." That accords with the historic pattern, so again, the idea of a freebooting Franciscan order defying the church but yet being a genuine part of it doesn't seem possible.

To my knowledge btw there are no Anglican Dominicans.

 

[Albion]

Right. There are such religious orders. But as compared to the RC or EO churches, their significance (is that the best way to put it?) is not as much. The woman's community in Maryland, the Benedictines in Three Rivers, Michigan, and the (Franciscan?) Community on Long Island have been rather famous in Episcopalian circles over the past years, as a matter of fact, but if we address the overall picture, no, monasticism isn't as big a feature of Anglicanism as it is in the other communions. Of course, that's only speaking of the USA.

 

[Albion]

To my knowledge btw there are no Anglican Dominicans.

I think there are some, but very small communities.

 

[SteveCaruso]

To my knowledge btw there are no Anglican Dominicans.

The Anglican Order of Preachers is the Anglican Dominican branch.

 

[Wgw]

The Anglican Order of Preachers is the Anglican Dominican branch.

Ah, thanks.

 

[SteveCaruso]

Ah, thanks.

No problem. They are fairly obscure and, as you can see, they have poor web presence.

 

[Simon Crosby]

A friendly reminder for everyone:

Please do not refer to the Episcopal church or its ministers as corrupt, heretical, etc. If you are not an Anglican member, you may post in fellowship, but you may not come into our forum & insult one of the member churches or debate it's beliefs. Those are site rules & it seems needed to reiterate that fact.

The OP has already been answered in full, which is A) conservatives are already welcome in TEC & B) if you disagree with that then there are continuing churches & ACNA already in existence.

The idea in the OP amounts to starting yet another denomination, which is always possible but not likely to be done in TEC.

Debates over women's ordination, Bible versions, etc have been done ad nauseum on this website & the reality is, faithful Christians disagree. As an aside, the NRSV is not "mandatory" for Episcopalians, there are other Bible versions authorized for use within the denomination.

I am an Anglican, a member of the Church of England, and thus I think I am entitled to say the Episcopal Church is in error, and in that respect wgw was right. It would seem even the Anglican Communion has amazingly managed to agree that the ECUSA has crossed a rubicon, hence their degraded membership. I myself wish our primates would work up the moral fortitude needed to apply increased pressure on the American church; for example, threaten to accept ACNA as a full member of the communion unless the Episcopal Church backs off on gay marriage. I would support doing this anyway, except the Americans have some lovely churches like St. John the Divine in New York, which I would hate to see continue in their current state; my view is that we Anglicans must stage a "fight back" to reclaim the Episcopal Church for Anglicanism, perhaps by encouraging ACNA members to rejoin the American church in dioceses where they might have the numbers to have an influence.

Now regarding what Wgw proposed I doubt however the bishops would let him get away with his proposed scheme. The only way it might work would be as a lay association that met to say mattins and evensong, and then perhaps had an invitation only communion service at another parish.

I have read that the former Presiding Bishop, whose name has already slipped my mind, introduced a nasty rule that Episcopal churches could not be sold to entities which sought to replace the Episcopal church. Maybe the best option would be to lobby the ECUSA to change or ameliorate this rule. They are likely to have another schism soon over the new prayer book, which, if it looks anything like some people want it to (removal of the creeds. watered down theology), will cause another schism.

I am not really all that happy with the Church of England; we have some misguided priests, to be sure. but ++Welby strikes me as a solid evangelical, a good man, who I can criticize only for his choice of vestments. All things considered, however, a garish dolphin mitre isn't so bad. I also feel like Justin Welby is a bit more conservative than his predecessor, although on the other hand, Rowan Williams did have a definite gravitas to him.

Now, regarding monastic orders, although I lean in a reformed direction, I can't object to these (you might call ke a Mercersburg man); I wish we had more celibates, as I think promoting Christian celibacy might be a good solution to the very real problem of overopulation. I would love to see a member of the Order of the Holy Cross or the Anglican Franciscans become a bishop in my lifetime. I like married bishops, but I look at the celibate bishops of Rome and the East, and I see a great deal to admire there.

I love going up to London by the way. There are some very traditional Anglican parishes of all levels of churchmanship. Holy Trinity Brompton on the evangelical side, St. Magnus the Martyr on the Catholic side. I especially like the churches in the City like St. Stephen Walbrook and St. Sepulchre; these churches have very nice services during the week at lunch hour where you can pop in for a 15-30 minute midday prayer.

Out here in Douglas, one does not have that kind of choice in the matter.

At the risk of sounding nationalist, I think I can, by being Manx, get by in expressing some gratitude for not being Scottish. Not because I don't like the Scots. but because the choice between the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church of Scotland is not a happy choice. It is especially dire for the Orcadians.

 

[Simon Crosby]

Our Lords message is a message of love of ALL creation and the inclusion of ALL creation, when people start arguing about who is in and who is out (normally those who think like them are the ones that are in) and then the people who try and say the the KJV of the Bible is the only true and correct God inspired version of the Bible; I simply turn off and wander away.

I am going to buy out of this one now...

None of the gripes the Yanks have with their church, or that I have with the C of E, are over anything as petty as the Authorized Version.

We are instead talking about actual changes to the faith. Anglicanism is about Scripture, Tradition and Reason; now, it may seem reasonable in view of contemporary perspectives on homosexuality to perform gay wesdings in church, but it is against scripture and against tradition.

And that's not all that is wrong. I can think of several Church of England priests who come across as very nearly Unitarian, and the American church is even worse. I read a sermon by their former presiding bishop on Christmas Eve that managed to very nearly completely avoid talkimg about the Incarnation in favour of various social justice issues.

Also, no one is talking about excluding anyone from the Church. Its just a question of what the church is and is not allowed to do. Anglican latitudinarianism has been used as a stepping stone for all sorts of abuses. Now Wgw comes from a traditiom where your views should be in alignment with those of your bishop; I respect that; Anglicanism grants us a little more leeway, but I can hardly fault traditionalist American Anglicans for wanting to leave the church, and it is a shame, the very unchristian way many of them have been treated by their bishops, in the name of "inclusion" and "tolerance." Which in contemporary Anglicanse, actually means exclusion and intolerance for Bible-believing Christians.

 

[Padres1969]

None of the gripes the Yanks have with their church, or that I have with the C of E, are over anything as petty as the Authorized Version.

We are instead talking about actual changes to the faith. Anglicanism is about Scripture, Tradition and Reason; now, it may seem reasonable in view of contemporary perspectives on homosexuality to perform gay wesdings in church, but it is against scripture and against tradition.

And that's not all that is wrong. I can think of several Church of England priests who come across as very nearly Unitarian, and the American church is even worse. I read a sermon by their former presiding bishop on Christmas Eve that managed to very nearly completely avoid talkimg about the Incarnation in favour of various social justice issues.

Also, no one is talking about excluding anyone from the Church. Its just a question of what the church is and is not allowed to do. Anglican latitudinarianism has been used as a stepping stone for all sorts of abuses. Now Wgw comes from a traditiom where your views should be in alignment with those of your bishop; I respect that; Anglicanism grants us a little more leeway, but I can hardly fault traditionalist American Anglicans for wanting to leave the church, and it is a shame, the very unchristian way many of them have been treated by their bishops, in the name of "inclusion" and "tolerance." Which in contemporary Anglicanse, actually means exclusion and intolerance for Bible-believing Christians.

You know though, that's not always the case. I spent the weekend with a different parish than typical about 500 miles from my home over the weekend. And they were a decidedly more reformed/broad church and conservative parish than my home parish (which is admittedly very much more the liberal and High Church/Anglo-Catholic, so it was different in both social and theological outlook than I'm typically exposed to). No one in the parish I visited struck me as being excluded or not tolerated. Their rector has been in place for almost 15 years with nary an issue and is often involved in interfaith committees, as diocesan canon theologian for several diocese, etc... So inclusion can and does still happen for conservative parishes.

I think where it becomes an issue isn't where there's a disagreement. It's where either side says they won't engage with those that are on the other side of one or more of those hot button issues (gay marriage, female episcopate, female clergy, gay clergy, etc...) that issues arise.

 

[Padres1969]

I have read that the former Presiding Bishop, whose name has already slipped my mind, introduced a nasty rule that Episcopal churches could not be sold to entities which sought to replace the Episcopal church. Maybe the best option would be to lobby the ECUSA to change or ameliorate this rule. They are likely to have another schism soon over the new prayer book, which, if it looks anything like some people want it to (removal of the creeds. watered down theology), will cause another schism.

I'd say it's far too early to presume there will be a schism of some sort with regard to a new prayer book, assuming they even go forward with proposing one. And even earlier still to presume that they'll go forward with things like removal of the creeds from the liturgy. From what I've heard from members of the Episcopate, there's not much support for the latter given the creeds are a foundational statement of faith, and frankly many in the Episcopate still consider the 1979 BCP to be the "new" book and be a tome that still has plenty of proverbial miles left in it and things to teach us.

 

[Albion]

I'd say it's far too early to presume there will be a schism of some sort with regard to a new prayer book, assuming they even go forward with proposing one. And even earlier still to presume that they'll go forward with things like removal of the creeds from the liturgy. From what I've heard from members of the Episcopate, there's not much support for the latter given the creeds are a foundational statement of faith, and frankly many in the Episcopate still consider the 1979 BCP to be the "new" book and be a tome that still has plenty of proverbial miles left in it and things to teach us.

Besides, there are two very significant items that weigh against any schism at present.

1. Most of the traditionalists/conservatives have already left ECUSA.
2. Those who remain--and might find some new development to be the "straw that breaks the camel's back"--already have two alternatives that didn't exist in earlier years. There are the Continuing Anglican churches for conservatives and ACNA for moderates. It would surprise me if very many people rallied to the idea of starting a new church body when these are available.