Anglican Church in a mess!

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franko2

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Maybe it’s just me but from the reports in the media they seem to be at breaking point. What do u think the future holds for them?
 
franko2 said:
Maybe it’s just me but from the reports in the media they seem to be at breaking point. What do u think the future holds for them?
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About what it’s held for the past 30 years, only more so.

GKC

Anglicanus Catholicus
 
There’s an Anglican church not far from here that focuses in “Celtic spirituality.” And by that I mean pre-Christian.:eek: There’s another one that’s all about New Age and Yoga. If you thought our bishops turn a blind eye…

Having said that, there is a nice Anglo-Catholic parish not far from me, and a couple of Evangelical Anglican churches, so it really is a mixed bag.
 
It would be good to hear an opinion from an Anglican, Is it just the media talking rubbish or is it really in a crisis?
 
franko2 said:
It would be good to hear an opinion from an Anglican, Is it just the media talking rubbish or is it really in a crisis?
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You just heard an opinion from an Anglican. Me. The Anglican Communion has been in a crisis for many years. It will continue to be.

GKC

*Anglicanus Catholicus *
 
GKC said:
You just heard an opinion from an Anglican. Me. The Anglican Communion has been in a crisis for many years. It will continue to be.

GKC

*Anglicanus Catholicus *
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GKC, why on earth remain an Anglican? I am truly puzzled by this… If one is from the Anglo-Catholic wing, why remain in communion with a church that has so clearly lost its course? Why not become Catholic or Orthodox or Lutheran or anything… Same goes for the Evangelical wing. Why not become Baptist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Free…? “Abandon ship!”

I mean no offence - I just find it difficult to understand how, when one’s church starts officially to deny Christian moral teaching to such an extent, one can remain in communion with it…
 
jonk said:
There’s an Anglican church not far from here that focuses in “Celtic spirituality.” And by that I mean pre-Christian.:eek: There’s another one that’s all about New Age and Yoga. If you thought our bishops turn a blind eye…

Having said that, there is a nice Anglo-Catholic parish not far from me, and a couple of Evangelical Anglican churches, so it really is a mixed bag.
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I notice you attend the Simpsons’ Church. Is Marge still anti-Catholic?
 
jonk said:
GKC, why on earth remain an Anglican? I am truly puzzled by this… If one is from the Anglo-Catholic wing, why remain in communion with a church that has so clearly lost its course? Why not become Catholic or Orthodox or Lutheran or anything… Same goes for the Evangelical wing. Why not become Baptist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Free…? “Abandon ship!”

I mean no offence - I just find it difficult to understand how, when one’s church starts officially to deny Christian moral teaching to such an extent, one can remain in communion with it…
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No offense taken, but you misunderstand. I’m not in communion with any part of the offical Anglican Communion - ECUSA or Canterbury, or any other of the 38 provinces. I’m one of the traditionalist Anglicans, those who started to split from ECUSA 30 years ago, over what was then primarily liturgical issues, and rapidly spread to more heretical doctrinal problems, (such as females in sacerdotal garments), on the current path to apostasy. These traditionalists are the groups collectively referred to as Continuing Anglicans, or the Continuum. One group of Continuers got a lot of board space here some months back - The Traditional Anglican Communion.

IOW, your reaction is absolutely spot on. OTOH, Contarini might explain why you are wrong, when he returns.

GKC

Anglicanus Catholicus, posterus traditus Anglicanus
 
jonk said:
It’s the One True Church 😃
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The Western America Branch of Reformed Presbo-Lutheranism? Wooooohoooo.

P.S. Conservative Anglicans are sheepish about joining the Catholic Church, because, as Homer Simpson agreed: “One you go Vatican, you can’t go back again.”
 
A friend of mine used to be Episcopalian. She left and joined the Lutheran Church because her former Episcopal Church got a gay pastor. Almost everybody else left too, and her former parish closed.
 
franko2 said:
It would be good to hear an opinion from an Anglican, Is it just the media talking rubbish or is it really in a crisis?
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It is in crisis. As GKC noted, the problems in the Episcopal Church go back way further than the more recent developments (ordination of an actively homosexual bishop and a woman as Presiding Bishop). At the meeting of bishops in Tanzania last month, the Anglican Communion required the Episcopal Church to take certain additional steps to ensure that it will not ordain gay bishops or approve same-sex blessing rites (at least at this time). There was a threat, set forth in the traditional Anglican understated fashion but still a threat, that the Episcopal Church could be asked to “walk apart” if it does not comply. This could happen. Many liberals within the Episcopal Church are advocating leaving the Anglican Communion rather than “betray” their Gay and Lesbian friends. My prediction is that there will be some kind of “fudging” by the Episcopal Church that will put off the Anglican Communion again.

In the meantime, many conservative Anglicans in America (primarily but not totally Anglo-Catholics) left the Church in the 1970s and worship in “continuing churches” (apostolic succession outside of the Anglican Communion). More recently, within the last few years, conservative bishops from Africa and elsewhere have established branches of their churches in the USA which serve to provide an umbrella for conservative Episcopalians who wish to remain a part of the Anglican Communion (through the African membership in the Communion) but not in the Episcopal Church. Examples would be the Anglican Mission in America and the Convocation of Anglicans in America. These are primarily made up of conservative evangelical Anglicans, as opposed to Anglo-Catholics.

Where will all of this lead? God only knows.
 
My Father is an Anglican vicar and I have been brought up in the Church of England all my life.

My Dad is great at his job, but he’s the exception that proves the rule in this area. The other parishes are in decline… I am always the youngest person there by thirty years lol

but I feel that the state of the Anglican church is very different in the UK… it is the countries religion…

I feel that many are scared by the rate of change… and something does have to give, but the strategy being used at the moment here is to merge churches…so maybe one priest for two churches. I think in years to come it will go back to having one massive church in the city centre and everyone travelling to it, rather than a parish based ministry.
 
mark_a said:
Your post (above) is very informative.

Could you elaborate?
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GKC could no doubt give you a much better idea than I can since I first joined the Episcopal Church pretty late in the game (1987), but basically over the years the Church became less devoted to a historical understanding of Scripture and tradition and more enamored of liberal Protestantism. I think that this probably started back in the early part of the 20th Century and accelerated from there. It got pretty bad in the the 1970s when, for instance, the Church began ordaining women and, also, departed from the Book of Common Prayer that had been used for many years. The Church not only failed to defrock heretical priests, it ordained them as bishops (e.g., Bishop Spong). Unfortunately, it has gotten even worse in the last ten years or so.
 
I was raised Anglican. In the ‘high church’, It’s a really odd religion. Protestant theology with a Catholic veneer.

My parents are some sort of ‘continuing anglicans’. Basically, this recent stuff is not a problem for them because they are kinda like what SSPX is to the Catholic Church, a more traditionalist splitoff.

In any case, I think you’ll probably see the evangelical wing split from the liberal wing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the “anglo Catholic” holdouts end up moving to the (Roman) Catholic Church when in a few years the remaining high-churches dry up.
 
rr1213 said:
GKC could no doubt give you a much better idea than I can since I first joined the Episcopal Church pretty late in the game (1987), but basically over the years the Church became less devoted to a historical understanding of Scripture and tradition and more enamored of liberal Protestantism. I think that this probably started back in the early part of the 20th Century and accelerated from there. It got pretty bad in the the 1970s when, for instance, the Church began ordaining women and, also, departed from the Book of Common Prayer that had been used for many years. The Church not only failed to defrock heretical priests, it ordained them as bishops (e.g., Bishop Spong). Unfortunately, it has gotten even worse in the last ten years or so.
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Good synopsis.

GKC.
 
Abira said:
My Father is an Anglican vicar and I have been brought up in the Church of England all my life.

My Dad is great at his job, but he’s the exception that proves the rule in this area. The other parishes are in decline… I am always the youngest person there by thirty years lol

but I feel that the state of the Anglican church is very different in the UK… it is the countries religion…
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Not North of the Tweed or West of the Severn, it’s not 🙂​

The Principality of Wales has not had an established religion since 1917, when the Church of Wales was disestablished; & Scotland has been Presbyterian since 1690, when the Church of Scotland was given legal recognition as the Church of the nation. As for the Church of Ireland, that’s no longer established either, not even in the North of Ireland.

The Church of England is established in England - & has been since 1559 - but nowhere else in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I wonder if this is confusing 🙂 ? ##
I feel that many are scared by the rate of change… and something does have to give, but the strategy being used at the moment here is to merge churches…so maybe one priest for two churches. I think in years to come it will go back to having one massive church in the city centre and everyone travelling to it, rather than a parish based ministry.
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It will be interesting if there is a reversion to the way things were before the parochial system got off the ground…​

 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

Not North of the Tweed or West of the Severn, it’s not 🙂​

The Principality of Wales has not had an established religion since 1917, when the Church of Wales was disestablished; & Scotland has been Presbyterian since 1690, when the Church of Scotland was given legal recognition as the Church of the nation. As for the Church of Ireland, that’s no longer established either, not even in the North of Ireland.

The Church of England is established in England - & has been since 1559 - but nowhere else in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I wonder if this is confusing 🙂 ? #### It will be interesting if there is a reversion to the way things were before the parochial system got off the ground… ##
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sorry michael :)… mixing up my vocab like a true Englishman there! lol… I’ve never witnessed anything but the parochial system… but I know it’s very stretched. I’m in the biggest parish in Europe in terms of numbers and it’s insanely massive and impossible to cover with any real care… the sheer number of births, marriages and deaths of non-church goers often interferes with the real mission of preaching and caring for current and future parishioners.

ps. you’re Welsh, right?.. or else just more linguistically sensitive than me lol

Take care, S 🙂
 
How’s it go? You can call a Scot or a Welshman British, but you dare not call them English? 😃
 
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