BREAKING: Episcopal Church suspended from Anglican Communion

[Peter_J]

The central body of the church excommunicates, not the other way around.

This will be a little off topic, but as a Catholic myself I feel a duty to point out that an excommunication came out of Constantinople in 1054, but I don’t regard Constantinople as the central body of the church.

 

[theropod]

What do you think will happen in three years?

Are you a traditionalist? (I don’t mean to pry - I am genuinely trying to get your viewpoint if you are)

What would have been the ideal outcome of these talks? Assuming you didn’t want the break or feel it was necessary.

I think in three years, nothing will have changed within TEC as far as SSM. I think that TEC will leave the AC before the three years is up, and if they don’t, they will be pushed out. I predict a merger of TEC and ELCA as they are almost identical in belief and practice.

I would consider myself a traditionalist, at least in regards to adherence to Biblical teaching and Christian understanding of morality throughout the ages. As far as what the clergy wear, or whether or not they use incense, I don’t care.

I am satisfied with the outcome, as it is the best opportunity for TEC to repent. The current TEC Presiding Bishop is the last avenue of hope for that to happen, however slim the chances of that happening are. Past leadership was an impediment to this. At the end of these three years, if no changes have been made, I support full expulsion from the AC.

 

[steido01]

I think in three years, nothing will have changed within TEC as far as SSM. I think that TEC will leave the AC before the three years is up, and if they don’t, they will be pushed out. I predict a merger of TEC and ELCA as they are almost identical in belief and practice.

I would consider myself a traditionalist, at least in regards to adherence to Biblical teaching and Christian understanding of morality throughout the ages. As far as what the clergy wear, or whether or not they use incense, I don’t care.

I am satisfied with the outcome, as it is the best opportunity for TEC to repent. The current TEC Presiding Bishop is the last avenue of hope for that to happen, however slim the chances of that happening are. Past leadership was an impediment to this. At the end of these three years, if no changes have been made, I support full expulsion from the AC.

Yep. Can they drop the ‘Lutheran’ moniker, see as, well, they’re not?

 

[theropod]

standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/32091

EXCLUSIVE: Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Why the GAFCON Primates Chose to Thrash it Out

Good commentary there. One thing that stood out to me, was the lack of knowledge about what’s been going on in TEC and the ACoC over the past couple of decades. Everyone is on the same page now, that’s for sure.

For 20 of the Primates it was their first gathering and a large number simply weren’t properly informed as to what TEC and ACoC had been doing over the past 20 years. In our rapid information culture of the west this seems incredible, but that’s the reality. Those Primates needed to be briefed and reasoned with so they could understand the gravity of the situation.

Hard to believe, but non-westerners don’t spend all day on the interwebs, I guess.

 

[theropod]

Yep. Can they drop the ‘Lutheran’ moniker, see as, well, they’re not?

I wish they would, and I’ve never been in a Lutheran church in my life.

 

[thephilosopher6]

I think in three years, nothing will have changed within TEC as far as SSM. I think that TEC will leave the AC before the three years is up, and if they don’t, they will be pushed out. I predict a merger of TEC and ELCA as they are almost identical in belief and practice.

If that does happened, then the Anglican Church of North America will probably replace the Episcopal Church and be accepted into full communion with the Anglican Communion. They’re actually already on their way to full communion. And the good thing is, they’re very conservative.

 

[Thorolfr]

I think in three years, nothing will have changed within TEC as far as SSM. I think that TEC will leave the AC before the three years is up, and if they don’t, they will be pushed out. I predict a merger of TEC and ELCA as they are almost identical in belief and practice.

I would consider myself a traditionalist, at least in regards to adherence to Biblical teaching and Christian understanding of morality throughout the ages. As far as what the clergy wear, or whether or not they use incense, I don’t care.

I am satisfied with the outcome, as it is the best opportunity for TEC to repent. The current TEC Presiding Bishop is the last avenue of hope for that to happen, however slim the chances of that happening are. Past leadership was an impediment to this. At the end of these three years, if no changes have been made, I support full expulsion from the AC.

How far behind the Episcopal Church can the Church of England be in performing same-sex marriages? Already this last October, an openly married gay vicar, Andrew Foreshew-Cain, was elected to the Church of England’s General Synod. In another generation, SSM will probably be performed in the Church of England. So will the Church of England also be expelled from the Anglican Communion and how Anglican would the Anglican Communion be without England?

Britain’s only openly married gay vicar has been elected to the Church of England’s General Synod, and will use his position to “advocate for a church that faces up to issues of sexuality in a honest and compassionate way”.

Andrew Foreshew-Cain, the vicar of St Mary with All Souls, Kilburn and St James, West Hampstead, said he was “pleased but shocked” at his election in the London section of the nationwide ballot to the church’s governing body. “I wasn’t expecting to get on – I thought the clergy were too conservative to vote for a progressive like me,” he told the Guardian.

His election reflected a hope “for a more inclusive and tolerant church”, he added. “People would not have voted for me if they didn’t want to see the change we represent.”

The number of votes cast for individuals is not disclosed.

Another gay vicar, Bertrand Olivier of All Hallows by the Tower, in the City of London, was also elected after what he described as a “polarising” contest.

“The next five years will be quite important as the Church of England continues to consider how it deals with gay marriage as the rest of the world moves on,” he said.

theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/britains-only-openly-married-gay-vicar-elected-to-church-of-england-synod

 

[theropod]

How far behind the Episcopal Church can the Church of England be in performing same-sex marriages? Already this last October, an openly married gay vicar, Andrew Foreshew-Cain, was elected to the Church of England’s General Synod. In another generation, SSM will probably be performed in the Church of England. So will the Church of England also be expelled from the Anglican Communion and how Anglican would the Anglican Communion be without England?

theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/britains-only-openly-married-gay-vicar-elected-to-church-of-england-synod

Expelled, left behind, that depends on your interpretation of events. Rest assured, any province that goes down this path is going to find themselves isolated. CoE included.

The provinces remain Anglican even without the Church of England. That is their heritage.

 

[Thorolfr]

Expelled, left behind, that depends on your interpretation of events. Rest assured, any province that goes down this path is going to find themselves isolated. CoE included.

The provinces remain Anglican even without the Church of England. That is their heritage.

Unfortunately, religion in general has been left behind by the people of England and by most other Europeans. As Callum G. Brown, Professor of Religious and Cultural History at the University of Dundee, has pointed out in his book, The Death of Christian Britain (Routledge, 2009), pp. 3-4:

In the year 2000 less than 8 per cent of people attend Sunday worship in any week, less than a quarter are members of any church, and fewer than a tenth of children attend a Sunday school. Fewer than half of couples get married in church, and about a third of couples cohabit without marriage. In England only a fifth of babies get baptized in the Church England, and in Scotland one estimate is that about a fifth are baptized in either the Church of Scotland or the Roman Catholic Church. By some calculations, as few as 3 per cent of people regularly attend church in some counties of England, and in most the non-churchgoers represent over 90 per cent of the population. If church participation is falling, all figures for Christian affiliation are at their lowest point in recorded history. Christian church membership accounts for less than 12 per cent of the people and is falling….So weak are the demographics of church connection that the government is now contemplating disestablishing the Church of England.

 

[Brendan_64]

Father Longenecker makes some very good points.

patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2016/01/anglicans-excommunicate-the-episcopalians.html

This would indeed seem to represent the more orthodox African clergy flexing it’s muscles and challenging Western liberalism within the Anglican Communion, and succeeding.

This has important implications for the Catholic Church as it faces the same issues, the same orthodox South versus liberal North within the Church, the same vibrant growing Church in Africa versus a declining Church in Europe and America. A Church in the South that wants to mould the world to the Church, a Church in the North that wants to mould the Church to the world.

Let us pray that the African bishops in the Catholic Church have the same influence and impact within the Catholic Church that the African Anglican bishops have had within the Anglican Communion.

 

[GKC]

I heard the Anglican Church of Canada is also being threatened with suspension if they do vote to allow SSM.

You can read that idea in this thread, too.

 

[GKC]

Thanks for the insight. The last I had seen was ++Welby saying a conference hadn’t been called yet, but that was sometime last year.

Which is what I meant by his Grace being coy. If any form of resolution ensues in the interim,no reason not to call the conference.

 

[GKC]

This doesn’t really sound like what I’ve heard from probably better sources than The Telegraph. First, I don’t think anyone “wins” here. But I don’t think the traditionalists were defeated by any stretch. If anyone is a “winner”, it’s ++Welby. He’s managed to pull off the impossible, which is getting all the primates together, and getting all but one to stay through the entire meeting. Nobody thought that would happen.

A wet noodle across the wrists of TEC it might be, but it is somewhat more robust a rebuke than some had anticipated.

 

[GKC]

How can they do it themselves? I thought that was impossible unless it was “automatic excommunication” i.e. explicitly clear such as when Pope Benedict warned politicians not to receive communion when they publicly support abortion. The central body of the church excommunicates, not the other way around.

There is no singular Anglican Church, and what is in question would be whether the Anglican Communion (a communion of 38 autocephalous Churches), by vote of the Primates in communion, vote TEC (or any other such Province) out of the Anglican Communion. It sounds like excommunicating, but it isn’t. The “doing it themselves” suggests that TEC might walk out of the Communion in high dudgeon, not waiting to be cast out.

I doubt it.

 

[GKC]

The only thing I found somewhat difficult to understand was at the very end when Bishop Curry said, "I am a Christian in the Anglican way. And like you, as we have said in this meeting, I am committed to ‘walking together’ with you as fellow primates in the Anglican family.”

What I’m unsure about is what Bishop Curry means if eventually TEC, as the Church sees itself today, is unwelcome to walk together in the Anglican Communion. By Anglican way and family, could this eventually mean TEC might remain Anglican in practice in the sense that Old Catholics are Catholic in worship style for instance, but are not in communion with Rome? Or does Bishop Curry mean TEC might “repent”, the word I believe I saw someone use here.

That means he hopes not to be voted out of the Communion, and that some form of restructuring of the Communion and the relationships of its constituent Provinces might make that possible .

Being voted out would make TEC an autocephalous Anglican Church, not belonging to the Anglican Communion (those Anglican entities who are in formal communion with themselves, and the Archbishop of Canterbury). Like the Anglican Continuum, which would be ironic. Or like the ACNA, which, currently, is not formally in the Communion.

 

[GKC]

theropod;13582566:

I think in three years, nothing will have changed within TEC as far as SSM. I think that TEC will leave the AC before the three years is up, and if they don’t, they will be pushed out. I predict a merger of TEC and ELCA as they are almost identical in belief and practice.

If that does happened, then the Anglican Church of North America will probably replace the Episcopal Church and be accepted into full communion with the Anglican Communion. They’re actually already on their way to full communion. And the good thing is, they’re very conservative.

I think if TEC is not the Anglican rep in the Communion, ACNA is likely to be, yes. But it’s a big if.

Traditional (in the generic sense) and conservative the ACNA is, and they have fought the good fight. But they are still wobbly on a doctrinal point or two.

 

[GKC]

Expelled, left behind, that depends on your interpretation of events. Rest assured, any province that goes down this path is going to find themselves isolated. CoE included.

The provinces remain Anglican even without the Church of England. That is their heritage.

I could envision two competing Communions arising. Sort of two lungs of Anglicanism.

Maybe.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Once again we see how unwise it is to underestimate the skill of ++Justin in circumstances like these. But I fear this is just Round One. Welby will next face the considerable and (I suspect) growing and increasingly loud lobby within the CofE for a Tec-ward move.

This will be supported not only by many in the Anglo-Catholic wing (which has, of course, provided shelter for homosexuals for many years, and where there is some lack of sympathy for ++Justin’s evangelical churchmanship) but also, I forecast, by a surprising number of Broad Church Anglicans, where I think attitudes to homosexuality have undergone a surprising change in the past 20 years – as indeed they have in the population at large, which is not irrelevant for an established church.

 

[CopyBoy]

The ‘Splainer: Can the Anglican-Episcopalian marriage be saved?

(RNS) The Anglican Communion has voted to suspend the Episcopal Church, its American branch, from participating in decision-making and governance for three years. The move came in a private meeting of Anglican leaders in Canterbury, England and is designed to send a message — Anglicans feel the decisions Episcopalians have made regarding gay clergy (they got ’em), same-sex marriage (they do ’em) are out of line with what the the majority of Anglicans consider Christian doctrine.

religionnews.com/2016/01/14/splainer-can-anglican-episcopalian-marriage-saved/

 

[GKC]

Once again we see how unwise it is to underestimate the skill of ++Justin in circumstances like these. But I fear this is just Round One. Welby will next face the considerable and (I suspect) growing and increasingly loud lobby within the CofE for a Tec-ward move.

This will be supported not only by many in the Anglo-Catholic wing (which has, of course, provided shelter for homosexuals for many years, and where there is some lack of sympathy for ++Justin’s evangelical churchmanship) but also, I forecast, by a surprising number of Broad Church Anglicans, where I think attitudes to homosexuality have undergone a surprising change in the past 20 years – as indeed they have in the population at large, which is not irrelevant for an established church.

As usual, a good perspective from close to the scene of the action.

I add perhaps a slight clarification: the Anglo-Catholic wing is not necessarily the Affirming Catholic wing. There are Forward in Faith types across the spectrum.

But, indeed, this is not the end. As usual, I forbear from forecasting.