C of E Facing Difficult Choices

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The Church of England will be engulfed in “civil war” if American bishops are disciplined for consecrating the first actively homosexual Anglican bishop, leading liberals said yesterday.
There would be “outrage” and a number of clergy would consider resigning in protest, the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, said.

Any attempt to do more than censure the Episcopal Church would be “gravely mistaken”, added the Dean, a prominent ally of Dr Jeffrey John, the homosexual cleric forced to step down as Bishop of Reading last year.

news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/11/nbish11.xml
 
See what happens when you don’t follow the teachings of the Catholic Church. Once you split from the Mother Church it is much easier to split again and again. That is why there are so many Protestant churches.
 
C.S. Lewis was an Anglican who in 1948 wrote an essay entitled “Priestesses in the Church?” when the discussions about ordaining women first arose. C.S. Lewis called the idea “a wanton degree of imprudence” and that “the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation.” From the vantage point of a half-century later, I would say he was remarkably prophetic.

I read somewhere that Catholic Church attendance in England, as abysmal as it is, is higher than C of E attendance. If things keep going the way they are, there might not even be a Church of England in another half-century…:hmmm:
 
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RNRobert:
C.S. Lewis was an Anglican who in 1948 wrote an essay entitled “Priestesses in the Church?” when the discussions about ordaining women first arose. C.S. Lewis called the idea “a wanton degree of imprudence” and that “the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation.” From the vantage point of a half-century later, I would say he was remarkably prophetic.

I read somewhere that Catholic Church attendance in England, as abysmal as it is, is higher than C of E attendance. If things keep going the way they are, there might not even be a Church of England in another half-century…:hmmm:
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Christianity as it was once known and practiced seems more and more to be under attack and while this is not new to the body of believers, I do not think that heretofore the “within the ranks” phenomenon has ever been seen the way it is now. It is a time of testing and divisiveness, and a source of great pain not just for the particular Christian Church one is a member of, but no true Christian can relish the sorrows being visited elsewhere either.
 
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HagiaSophia:
Christianity as it was once known and practiced seems more and more to be under attack and while this is not new to the body of believers, I do not think that heretofore the “within the ranks” phenomenon has ever been seen the way it is now. It is a time of testing and divisiveness, and a source of great pain not just for the particular Christian Church one is a member of, but no true Christian can relish the sorrows being visited elsewhere either.
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It is a shame what is happening to Christianity today, both within and without. I don’t rejoice in what’s happening to other churches, but as Lance pointed out, this is what happens when you leave the Mother Church. The Catholic Church has troubles today as she has had troubles in the past, but she has persevered and will continue to persevere. I don’t think that is true for the Anglican communion if things continue their current trend…
 
Well, we Anglicans would never claim that the See of Canterbury is indefectible, much less infallible! Possibly Anglicanism will disappear at some point in the future. Better things have gone down the drain of history. From our point of view, what matters that the Church goes on–and we do claim to be a part of the Church.

However, Anglicanism has faced equal woes in the past, IMHO. The 18th century was a low point as well, but evangelical revivals (and in the next century, Anglo-Catholicism) gave Anglicanism a new and unexpected lease on life. Today, again, there is a widespread evangelical movement within Anglicanism, and Anglicanism in Africa is thriving. So don’t write us off too quickly!

In Christ,

Edwin
 
While the anglican church may dissapear in England I think evangelical protestantism will absorb a good part of its loss. hopefully we absorb some of the loss as well. Seen shows where many evangelicals are having missionaries go to England. Which is a brilliant idea as most are unchurched and in a dying denomination. Wish us catholics could evangelize much the same.

Reading about the homosexual controversy out here in Orange County a Church member or the liberal parish of Saint Paul Epsicipal was complaining about the 3 churches who have left their local bishop to sign on with a conserative bishop in Africa he said “where do these churches get the authority to leave the church”?
I had to do a double take an Anglican talking about chruch authority. Hate to say it but I was like hey wasn’t King Herny the VIII breaking away from the Church with the ultimate authority and now your complaining about church autrhority when the church christ founded your church denoms founders ultimately rejected. Now that is what you call spin
 
:While the anglican church may dissapear in England I think evangelical protestantism will absorb a good part of its loss.:

Actually, a large part of evangelical Protestantism in England is Anglican. That is one of the main reasons why it’s unlikely that Anglicanism in England will disappear. It may eventually be disestablished and become an evangelical denomination, which I would regard as unfortunate but not the worst-case scenario.

: hopefully we absorb some of the loss as well. Seen shows where many evangelicals are having missionaries go to England. Which is a brilliant idea as most are unchurched and in a dying denomination.:

Actually it’s the usual blind Darwinist competition of American Protestants. Evangelical Anglicans are actually at the forefront of evangelization in England, and American evangelicals ought to cooperate with them (to their credit, many do). Ever heard of the Alpha program?

:I had to do a double take an Anglican talking about chruch authority.:

Well, that shows your ignorance of Anglicanism. Which is not a vice–just learn humbly instead of making dogmatic statements about something you don’t understand.

: Hate to say it but I was like hey wasn’t King Herny the VIII breaking away from the Church with the ultimate authority:

But that’s begging the question. Precisely what we deny is that the Church of Rome (I’m using that phrase precisely, not polemically, so don’t jump on me–I’m talking about the local See of Rome of which the Pope is the Bishop) or any other particular Church has ultimate authority. Rather, ultimate authority rests in the consensus of the whole Church. However, I have to say that historically Anglicans have put far too much weight on the autonomy of “particular churches,” by which we meant national churches. This national church idea is our fundamental error and it’s coming back to bite us. (Bishop Bruno, for instance, clearly seems to think that ECUSA can invoke the authority of the Church for its decisions, even when they go against Tradition and the consensus of the Anglican Communion, not to say the Church as a whole.)

The question is whether there is a way to affirm the authority of the whole Church without submitting to the Papacy in all its second-millenium developments. Of course you think there isn’t, but some of us are still struggling with that, because some of those developments seem so clearly contrary to Scripture and Tradition. Furthermore, for all their faults, the Orthodox are a good example of a functioning authority based on consensus.

In Christ,

Edwin
 
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HagiaSophia:
The Church of England will be engulfed in “civil war” if American bishops are disciplined for consecrating the first actively homosexual Anglican bishop, leading liberals said yesterday.
There would be “outrage” and a number of clergy would consider resigning in protest, the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, said.

Any attempt to do more than censure the Episcopal Church would be “gravely mistaken”, added the Dean, a prominent ally of Dr Jeffrey John, the homosexual cleric forced to step down as Bishop of Reading last year.

news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/11/nbish11.xml
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Not to change the subject, but isn’t that the very reason our bishops as an Episcopal body decided not to deny Holy Communion to “Catholic” politicians because liberals would think it an “outrage” and a number of liberal priests would have protested bitterly at such an action? I’m just speculating.

Now, concerning the Anglican Communion, in case they haven’t noticed, they are already in a civil war whether they acknowledge it or not.

My unsolicited advise to them? Come back to Rome and acknowledge Henry VIII was dead wrong!

Antonio 🙂
 
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RNRobert:
C.S. Lewis was an Anglican who in 1948 wrote an essay entitled “Priestesses in the Church?” when the discussions about ordaining women first arose. C.S. Lewis called the idea “a wanton degree of imprudence” and that “the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation.” From the vantage point of a half-century later, I would say he was remarkably prophetic.

I read somewhere that Catholic Church attendance in England, as abysmal as it is, is higher than C of E attendance. If things keep going the way they are, there might not even be a Church of England in another half-century…:hmmm:
Click to expand...
CS Lewis was being kind in calling it “a wonton degree of imprudence.” I call it “heresy” and a wanton disregard for tradition.

I read several weeks ago statistics that say that in England there are more Muslims attending mosques than Anglicans attending church. Talk about being in trouble!

Antonio 😦
 
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