Ask me anything: Episcopalian Edition

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I grew up Episcopalian.

Also, to hit your other points:
  1. The RCC has married clergy. But it’s limited. But why is married clergy so important? Seems trivial to me, and I think the arguments against it in general are strong.
  2. What if the laity are clueless, or, in the case of the Episcopal Church, actually tend to explicitly reject Christian orthodoxy?
  3. Discussed already.
  4. In what way does the Anglican Church value reason more than the RCC does? I think this is a really weak claim.
 
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So why are you not Roman? Seems to me you make for of a case to be part of the RCC then the Anglican.

BTW, married clergy is foundational in Anglicanism.
 
To be clear, my criticisms above are generally geared, except for married clergy, towards the Episcopal Church, not towards the Anglicans who actually care about orthodoxy.

If someone were asking me what church to join, I’d absolutely recommend becoming a Roman Catholic before I recommend they become Episcopalian.

As for married clergy being foundational, allowing married clergy is foundational. But then, so is Calvinism, so I (and GKMotley) reject plenty of what is “foundational” to Anglicanism. But even if something is allowed, it’s perfectly fine to still consider it not ideal. I think priestly celibacy is the ideal, but not that it should be mandatory. And I think Scripture supports that idea.

But there’s more than a small chance that I end up swimming the Thames, if you will, into the Ordinariate, so there’s that. The Catholic Church definitely preserves Christian orthodoxy much more fully than mainstream Anglicanism.
 
The Articles of Religion are the Anglican church’s “constitution”, so to speak. The Church of England requires its clergy to accept them. The “Anglican Communion” is the Churches in Communion with the Bishop of Canterbury. Do I remember correctly that the Episcopalian Church identifies Anglicans and “Anglicanism” as the Anglican Communion and the teachings of the Church of England?

Does this imply somehow that the Episcopalian Church is in some way tied to the Articles of Religion? I guess it only means that the Articles of Religion can’t be so offensive to it that it would break communion with those who hold to the Articles.
 
rakovskii said:
The Articles of Religion are the Anglican church’s “constitution”, so to speak. The Church of England requires its clergy to accept them. The “Anglican Communion” is the Churches in Communion with the Bishop of Canterbury. Do I remember correctly that the Episcopalian Church identifies Anglicans and “Anglicanism” as the Anglican Communion and the teachings of the Church of England?

Does this imply somehow that the Episcopalian Church is in some way tied to the Articles of Religion? I guess it only means that the Articles of Religion can’t be so offensive to it that it would break communion with those who hold to the Articles.
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It’s less tightly bound than you might think. The 39 Articles are required of CoE clergy, but other than that the obligation to them is pretty sparse throughout the Anglican Communion. As Anglican scholars are quick to point out, Anglicanism is primarily grounded in an ecclesial, not a doctrinal, view. As such, it tends to allow a good bit of deviation within broad limits of doctrine.
 
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In regards to what I just wrote, let me add that I was on an Anglican forum and pointed out that the authors of the Articles had opposing views (Lutheran by Bp. Guest & others vs. Calvinist by Bp. Cranmer & others) from each other on the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and that they explicitly included their opposing views in writing the Articles. The moderator replied to me that on the forum I wasn’t allowed to suggest that the Articles were internally contradictory.
 
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rakovskii said:
I was on an Anglican forum and pointed out that the authors of the Articles had opposing views (Lutheran by Bp. Guest vs. Calvinist by Bp. Cranmer) from each other on the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and explicit included their opposing views in writing the Articles. The moderator replied to me that on the forum I wasn’t allowed to suggest that the Articles were internally contradictory.
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Yeah, that’ll depend on the Anglican as well. I ran through the Articles quickly yesterday to see where I stand on them right now, and I got that I’m basically in agreement with about 60% of them (including some that I counted as half because I’m either on the fence or because I agree with one claim but not another within it).

The Reformed wing likes them. I don’t.

I’m just grateful that the early debate was between a Lutheran and a Calvinist. Squeezed the Zwinglians out, thank God.
 
Hopkins,
It sounds like you know your stuff.
I made a few surveys online and there is this weird dynamic where about 80% of Episcopalians and Anglicans will say that they agree with the Articles of Religion about the Real Presence in the Eucharist, but then when you ask them what they believe the Articles teach about it, they are about 50-50 split between the Lutheran and Calvinist views. And yet the “correct” answer in my view would be to say that the Articles are internally contradictory on the point.
 
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And then you have folks like me who pretty much come down on the side of the Catholic positions, but for this reason or that prefer to remain in the Anglican Church.
 
The most unpleasant (personally) part of the Articles is where they say that the king has the right to execute people. As a general rule, I’m against the death penalty and I think that Jesus’ saving the adulteress from stoning shows that Christians should avoid it. But I can see how in a theoretical sense, maybe a king has that right like the Articles say; Old Testament kings had it. But I find it very unpleasant how the king’s alleged right is so important to the Church of England that they made it one of their main enumerated faith tenets.
 
rakovskii said:
The most unpleasant (personally) part of the Articles is where they say that the king has the right to execute people. As a general rule, I’m against the death penalty and I think that Jesus’ saving the adulteress from stoning shows that Christians should avoid it. But I can see how in a theoretical sense, maybe a king has that right like the Articles say; Old Testament kings had it. But I find it very unpleasant how the king’s alleged right is so important to the Church of England that they made it one of their main enumerated faith tenets.
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There’s some discussion related to that above, if you have the patience to dig through and find it.

This is part of the reason the Articles are not required for acceptance outside the UK; there are issues with its dealing with royal authority that didn’t sit well with Revolution-era American Anglicans.
 
I think if you want to understand a church, you look to its basic agreed on documents like the Creeds or Protestant “Confessions”. The Articles are not a creed, but they show alot about the Church, even if not all member churches must accept them.

It looks to me like the nature of their Church has alot to do with the context when it was created in part by Royal Fiat and has alot of 16th c. English monarchical political ideology like monarchism, the “right” of a king to execute, the king’s role as head of church, the fact that the Eucharist’s nature wasn’t so important to the founders that they made a consistent statement on that issue. It’s like creating a new church with the state was more important than having theologically correct , unified teachings.
 
Ehhh, the Articles show you a lot about the Anglican Church at the time they were written. Its beliefs have gone in waves, and that was a time of Calvinist ascendancy in the CoE.

It’s worth remembering that under Henry VIII, the Anglican Church maintained Catholic doctrine and practice. It wasn’t until after his death, during the puppet reign of Edward VI, that the Reformers were able to grab the reigns and muck things up.
 
Well Cranmer and Ridley, two of the major leaders under Henry VIII, shared the Calvinist view on the Eucharist.

Wasn’t one of the central ideas in creating their church that a king should be the head of his nation’s church instead of the pope or bishops?
 
They were major leaders under Henry, but they were held in check because Henry was himself fairly Catholic, other than the obvious marital disagreements. Once he passed, they were able to do what they wanted.

But yes, that question of royal supremacy was one of Henry’s major concerns. But the more general adoption of Reformation doctrines was after his death.
 
The traditional model is to say that the assembly of a church’s bishops decide their doctrine (eg. with the Councils). All the bishops of the COE AFAIK signed on to the Articles. It would seem hard to deny that this new set of faith statements doesn’t define their Church’s foundational beliefs at that point, even if it’s not what Henry VIII believed.
 
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