Episcopal vs Baptist - What are the main differences?

[Albion]

Not in my experience it isn't.

Then you've had a very atypical experience. Let's just say that YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED Anglicans you can hardly distinguish from Baptists, etc., but that it's not a common thing with Anglicans.

 

[lesliedellow]

Then you've had a very atypical experience. Let's just say that YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED Anglicans you can hardly distinguish from Baptists, etc., but that it's not a common thing with Anglicans.

I remember a conversation I had with an Anglican priest who was himself a conservative evangelical. The subject of conversation was one of his colleagues. "He isn't an Anglican priest," he said. So I said what is he then, and the reply came back, "He is a Baptist minister."

You lucky people in America have got him amongst your number now, because that is where he went after leaving his parish in Britain.

 

[Albion]

I remember a conversation I had with an Anglican priest who was himself a conservative evangelical. The subject of conversation was one of his colleagues. "He isn't an Anglican priest," he said. So I said what is he then, and the reply came back, "He is a Baptist minister."

That comment could mean almost anything.

 

[Padres1969]

Then you've had a very atypical experience. Let's just say that YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED Anglicans you can hardly distinguish from Baptists, etc., but that it's not a common thing with Anglicans.

I think it depends on where you are in the country or world. It's true many Anglicans can be nearly Catholic, but there are plenty of Anglicans who are much closer to the Baptist end of Christianity. Particularly in the Southern US. But you find them everywhere. I mean I've been to Anglican Churches that while not Baptist, were definitely on the Protestant end of the spectrum and their service had little in common with a Catholic or Anglo-Catholic service.

 

[Albion]

It's true many Anglicans can be nearly Catholic, but there are plenty of Anglicans who are much closer to the Baptist end of Christianity. Particularly in the Southern US. But you find them everywhere. I mean I've been to Anglican Churches that while not Baptist, were definitely on the Protestant end of the spectrum and their service had little in common with a Catholic or Anglo-Catholic service.

You were talking about "Anglicans" before. Now it's become "little in common with a Catholic or Anglo-Catholic service??"

Which of those is it to be?

So, do you say that you commonly see Anglicans/Episcopalians in the USA whose worship services don't use the BCP or the hymnal, whose ministers do not so much as wear a Geneva gown during worship, who reject infant baptism and baptisms that are not by total immersion, who consider the Sacrament of the Altar to be merely a representational and memorial thing, and observe Communion maybe only quarterly? Is that correct?

 

[Job8]

I am trying to do research and figure out some of the major theological differences between episcopals and most other evangelical groups such as baptists.

As the name indicates Episcopal means those who believe in bishops (Greek episkopos = bishop), and the apostolic succession of bishops. Episcopals are Anglicans, and the Anglican Church came out of the Roman Catholic Church. There was a time when Episcopals were very similar to other Protestants, but since the 19th century theological liberalism infected Anglicans and the Episcopals. But then, so did it infect many Baptist groups (and mainline Protestant denominations).

 

[Albion]

As the name indicates Episcopal means those who believe in bishops (Greek episkopos = bishop), and the apostolic succession of bishops. Episcopals are Anglicans, and the Anglican Church came out of the Roman Catholic Church. There was a time when Episcopals were very similar to other Protestants, but since the 19th century theological liberalism infected Anglicans and the Episcopals. But then, so did it infect many Baptist groups (and mainline Protestant denominations).

It's "Episcopalians," not "Episcopals." And the church remains both theologically Catholic and Protestant, as it has been since the Roman Church broke with the Church of England.

It's true, though, that theological liberalism has affected most denominations in recent generations, but that's why there are liberal Anglican church bodies and also traditionalist ones, just as with Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, and so on.

 

[bbbbbbb]

It's "Episcopalians," not "Episcopals." And the church remains both theologically Catholic and Protestant, as it has been since the Roman Church broke with the Church of England.

It's true, though, that theological liberalism has affected most denominations in recent generations, but that's why there are liberal Anglican church bodies and also traditionalist ones, just as with Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, and so on.

Yes, and we see that same sorts of divisions within Catholicism, as well.

 

[Radagast]

Then you've had a very atypical experience. Let's just say that YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED Anglicans you can hardly distinguish from Baptists, etc., but that it's not a common thing with Anglicans.

I've met a very, very wide range of Anglicans, and I've met a very, very wide range of Baptists, and I've never had any trouble telling them apart. Anglicans, whether "high" or "low," will baptise infants; Baptists won't.

 

[Albion]

I've met a very, very wide range of Anglicans, and I've met a very, very wide range of Baptists, and I've never had any trouble telling them apart.

That's what I'd think. If someone cannot tell them apart, they probably didn't get a good reading of what each of the parties believes.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I've met a very, very wide range of Anglicans, and I've met a very, very wide range of Baptists, and I've never had any trouble telling them apart. Anglicans, whether "high" or "low," will baptise infants; Baptists won't.

That has been my experience, as well.

 

[ac28]

I was once a Baptist and, later on, I attended an Episcopal Church quite a few times with my wife, who was a lifelong Episcopalian. Over that time, there were 4 different preachers? there, 2 women and 2 men - I never heard salvation preached, not once. About the time my wife was diagnosed with Cancer, she told me that she believed in God but had troubles believing in Jesus Christ. With me, though, she refused to discuss this. She totally relied on her preacher? Towards the end, I told the present preacher? what she had said and asked him to talk to her about Christ. He said that it didn't make any difference. Naturally, I was very upset. Since she wouldn't listen to me, I prayed often for her salvation.

In my experiences, if you want to learn some Bible and get saved, be a Baptist. If you don't care about what the Bible says, be an Episcopalian. The only way you will learn anything in an Episcopal Church would be on your own, in spite of the Episcopal Church.

I'm sure there are exceptions to this, as far as Episcopal preachers? go, but I have a feeling that the exceptions are few and far between.

 

[Albion]

While it's quite possible to run into the kind of preacher you describe in an Episcopal church, that's only one of a number of different Episcopal or Anglican churches. Then too, it's not guaranteed that every Baptist congregation or minister is going to provide a sure way to learn about the Bible and get saved...and definitely not more likely than you'd find happening all the time in many other denominations.

 

[bbbbbbb]

While it's quite possible to run into the kind of preacher you describe in an Episcopal church, that's only one of a number of different Episcopal or Anglican churches. Then too, it's not guaranteed that every Baptist congregation or minister is going to provide a sure way to learn about the Bible and get saved...and definitely not more likely than you'd find happening all the time in many other denominations.

I have observed the complete spectrum of theological views in both the various Baptist denominations and in the Episcopal and Anglican churches. I no longer stereotype them but look at each case individually. For example, at one end of the spectrum there is the embarrssment of Bishop Spong. But for every Bishop Spong there are many faithful Anglicans who adhere strongly to orthodox Christianity.