Not familiar with these terms

[Mhiriam]

What does "Continuing Anglican" and other terms mean? Personally I haven't come across them yet.

Thanks!
Mim

 

[Albion]

Hello, Mim. The term Continuing Anglican properly refers to a number of new Anglican churches that separated from the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Anglican Church of Canada over changes in faith and worship being made by those two bodies. That is a very summary statement, I know, but I think the best thing for you to do is to check the article in Wikipedia that is entitled Continuing Anglican movement.

By the way, there are other Anglican churches that are not affiliated with the Anglican Communion, but they are not considered to be Continuing Anglican bodies because the beliefs are not the same. The 'Continuers' intended, as the term suggests, to keep with the traditional faith of Anglicanism including the Anglican lines of bishops in Apostolic Succession.

 

[SkyWriting]

What does "Continuing Anglican" and other terms mean? Personally I haven't come across them yet.

Thanks!
Mim

Continuing Anglican movement - Wikipedia
Continuing Anglican - Conservapedia

 

[com7fy8]

churches that separated from the Episcopal Church in the USA

Just a note > I might know one Episcopal pastor who has continued with more conservative morals, though others have done what they have. Each church, I think, can decide who they choose to pastor them. In the case I am talking about, it seems one felt he was about people, and so they were willing to overlook his holding to moral items which they did not agree with. And it looks like one who had issues is now talking about how he has been blessed; and others are more positive and encouraged. So, his ministry could be helping people.

So, it can help to actually get to know people, and not only the overall claims of a group. Also, there can be Bible believing ones who stay, hoping to change things, maybe with the intention of reaching people who need Jesus, using their changed setting as a fishing hole.

 

[Mhiriam]

Aha! Thank you - I'm not up-to-date with the goings on in the church in America, that will be why.

 

[Albion]

You're welcome. Although the Continuing Anglican movement has established churches outside of North America, it has hardly had any impact upon Australia, although I think there are a few parishes of the Anglican Catholic Church there.

 

[Shane R]

TAC had a small 'diocese' over there as well. I think all 2 or 3 of the clergy drifted off into the Ordinariate.

My archbishop told me a while back that the jurisdiction has never received an inquiry for affiliation from Australia, or New Zealand.

And therein is the dark side of the continuing movement: there are about 5-7 notable bodies and dozens of little groupings of 4-6 parishes around someone who got some retired bishops to lay hands on him and consecrate him a bishop in the apostolic succession (they love to make 20 page documents tracing their succession back to St. James or St. Peter or St. Paul). Then he goes and forms his own little fiefdom where everyone is in lock-step with his churchmanship and the whole 'diocese' is doing well if it adds up to more than 100 people. Some of the same individuals drift in and out of the little Old Catholic groups as well.

 

[Mhiriam]

"they love to make 20 page documents tracing their succession back to St James or St Peter or St Paul"

Hmm, 1 Timothy 1:4 anyone?

 

[Albion]

"they love to make 20 page documents tracing their succession back to St James or St Peter or St Paul"

Hmm, 1 Timothy 1:4 anyone?

I think Shane was referring specifically to these bishops feeling the need to document the lineage of their Apostolic Succession. While every bishop can do it, most do not feel the need to prove something like these people do.

 

[Paidiske]

As far as not having much in the way of these groups in Australia/NZ, I was talking about this with someone else recently. I gather that in America, pretty much all of the big denominations have split along conservative/liberal lines; so you get more than one Lutheran body, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, etc etc.

And that person (an American) was very surprised when I explained that we just haven't done that in Australia. The closest I can think of is that not all of the Presbyterians went into the Uniting Church. But apart from that, we have one Anglican body of any size, one Lutheran, one Methodist (now Uniting) and so forth. So the whole mentality of that kind of split, and what it does to churches, is something that just hasn't happened here... and on the whole, that I think Australian Christians don't want to happen.

There are demographic and practical reasons for that, too, of course. But I think it's part of why Australians looking at the American religious landscape often find it confusing.