Wow entire church converting!

[Bro_Sam]

Check this out.

Baltimore Episcopal Church Joining Catholic Church - wjz.com

Thank goodness. We've got a bunch more churches you can have.

 

[Athanasias]

Thank goodness. We've got a bunch more churches you can have.

we'll take em!

 

[prodromos]

Check this out.

Baltimore Episcopal Church Joining Catholic Church - wjz.com

Between 1892 and 1916, 168 Catholic parishes with approximately 100,000 faithful joined the Orthodox Church, largely due to the untiring efforts of Bishop John Ireland. We'd probably petition for his sainthood if it wasn't for the fact that he was a staunch Roman Catholic

 

[Athanasias]

Between 1892 and 1916, 168 Catholic parishes with approximately 100,000 faithful joined the Orthodox Church, largely due to the untiring efforts of Bishop John Ireland. We'd probably petition for his sainthood if it wasn't for the fact that he was a staunch Roman Catholic

Thats nice. But this threads about reformers coming home to the One Holy Catholci and apostolic Church. Yay

 

[prodromos]

Thats nice. But this threads about reformers coming home to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Yay

Then my post is right on topic (although it was innovators, not reformers)

 

[Athanasias]

Then my post is right on topic (although it was innovators, not reformers)

That's ok you can beleive anything you will. Even if you are wrong.

 

[ebia]

By all means celebrate these handfuls of people joining your tradition, but:
a) remember it is a tiny handful even compared to the numbers switching between our traditions all the time.
b) remember that triumphalism is unbecoming at best, and just looks absurd in this context.
c) pray that they are doing so for the right reasons - it's well worth reading +Ebbsfleet's letter to his see.
d) remember that, while no doubt there will be some more to come - in England particularly once +Ebbsfleet and +Richborough show their hands - nobody well informed about Anglicanism, even the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, thinks it will be large numbers in the forseeable future.

 

[prodromos]

That's ok you can believe anything you will. Even if you are wrong.

Ah, so that explains why you are Catholic. (isn't it fun to be condescending and play one-upmanship!)

 

[Secundulus]

By all means celebrate these handfuls of people joining your tradition, but:
a) remember it is a tiny handful even compared to the numbers switching between our traditions all the time.
b) remember that triumphalism is unbecoming at best, and just looks absurd in this context.
c) pray that they are doing so for the right reasons - it's well worth reading +Ebbsfleet's letter to his see.
d) remember that, while no doubt there will be some more to come - in England particularly once +Ebbsfleet and +Richborough show their hands - nobody well informed about Anglicanism, even the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, thinks it will be large numbers in the forseeable future.

If present trends in England are any indication they will be attending the mosque instead.

 

[ebia]

If present trends in England are any indication they will be attending the mosque instead.

The invalidity of that extrapolation doesn't need pointing out, I hope.

 

[tadoflamb]

By all means celebrate these handfuls of people joining your tradition, but:

Evangelicals aren't shy about celebrating their denominations growth. They take any type of growth as a sign of God's divine provision. Catholic conversions seem to be a particular feather in their cap.

Could you imagine the gloating if an entire Catholic parish converted to a reformed denomination?

 

[ebia]

Evangelicals aren't shy about celebrating their denominations growth. They take any type of growth as a sign of God's divine provision. Catholic conversions seem to be a particular feather in their cap.

Less than 100 people across two continents in a year hardly represents growth.

Could you imagine the gloating if an entire Catholic parish converted to a reformed denomination?

And it would still be unbecoming and, if the situation is at all comparible, equally absurd.

 

[sunlover1]

Interesting. I wonder why the people I know who are Episcopal switched teams? They are my age - perhaps the RCC did not hand out annulments so freely some years ago?

Has it become much easier now to get an annulment than it was in the past?

That's what i was wondering when I saw your post because I had done a little
research on annulments a year or two ago for
a thread in the morality folder here at CF because one of the RC's was braggin
about how they dont get divorced and such.
And you know me when I hear something that's not quite right.
(Imagine my poor chidlren, they have to live with me!)
Anyhow, sure enough, the research indicated that annulments were
passed out liberally. I think it would be very interesting to find out why
tehy feel you can just say something never happened.. what Biblical
support there is for it or is it just a "tradition" of "The Church".
I'm Thinking Angelmom1 knows a lot about marriage and divorce from
a biblical viewpoint. IMO this is some very important stuff because there
are poeple who are being treated like the red headed stepchildren becasue
they've divorced (Attended an AOG church for awhile who wont allow you
to even teach the children if you're divorced... guess God only forgives
SOME sins .... Although I do believe that they use the "husband of only
one wife" passage to come to that conclusion.
So yeah, it's interesting fo sho.

 

[Secundulus]

The invalidity of that extrapolation doesn't need pointing out, I hope.

No. But it is a fact that more people in England attend mosque on Friday than an Anglican Church on Sunday.

They should focus on that problem rather than worrying about the "handful" that are leaving for Rome.

In the quest to be "relevant" they have made themselves irrelevant.

 

[sunlover1]

Evangelicals aren't shy about celebrating their denominations growth. They take any type of growth as a sign of God's divine provision. Catholic conversions seem to be a particular feather in their cap.

Could you imagine the gloating if an entire Catholic parish converted to a reformed denomination?

I can.

#keepingitreal

 

[Rick Otto]

Check this out.

Baltimore Episcopal Church Joining Catholic Church - wjz.com

wow.

 

[Secundulus]

wow.

Is that the smallest font you could find?

 

[ebia]

No. But it is a fact that more people in England attend mosque on Friday than an Anglican Church on Sunday.

They should focus on that problem rather than worrying about the "handful" that are leaving for Rome.

In the quest to be "relevant" they have made themselves irrelevant.

1. The problem isn't people attending a Mosque, the problem is people not following Jesus. Mosques are diversion - secularisation, atheism, etc, as +Benedict identified are the issues. It's not that people are turning from Christ to Islam, but that some people are turning from religion while immigration and other pressures are growing the Islamic community.
2. The specific problem with the CofE is not "trying to make itself relevant" but the fact that it didn't really bother about mission for most of the 20th century. A lot of work has been done to turn that around in the last decade. FWIW, the CofE is visibly less liberal now than it was in the 1970s on a whole heap of measures.
3. Nobody much is worried about handfuls leaving for Rome. So far as I'm concerned +Ebbsfleet will be a loss, but he goes where God calls him.
4. These threads arent' started by Anglicans worrying, but by Catholics gloating - perhaps they need to stop making a song and dance about 80 something Anglicans crossing the Tiber and more about how they bring the whole world to Christ and grow their own people - there's more Catholics attending the Pentecostal church in this one small country town than the total number of TEC and CofE Anglicans in the whole of England and the US who have so far taken up the Apostolic Constitution.

 

[Rick Otto]

No. But it is a fact that more people in England attend mosque on Friday than an Anglican Church on Sunday.

They should focus on that problem rather than worrying about the "handful" that are leaving for Rome.

In the quest to be "relevant" they have made themselves irrelevant.

...by converting? I'd agree except my intuition is that ain't what ya meant.

 

[Secundulus]

...by converting? I'd agree except my intuition is that ain't what ya meant.

I read a book once by Dorothy Sayers who was writing of Church trends in the 1940's. The gist was that many Churches had been existing as arms of the state for hundreds of years. That arrangement worked well for both while the goals and values of both were similar. Between WWI and WWII, the states in Europe, for many reasons, found they no longer needed the Church to advance their aims. So, they discarded it as an encumbrance. Those Churches that had existed for hundreds of years in a particular state relationship suddenly found themselves in a new situation. Many failed to adapt or chose failing strategies. We are still seeing the results of this today.