Confession: Catholic compared with Anglican

[awesomecatholic]

Anglicans do have confession,but I consider it to be useless. It is quite different and you cannot do it face to face and there’s this long formula you have to follow. Also, the language used takes away from the sacrament.

 

[GKMotley]

You can do it face to face. Depends on the Anglicans you are thinking of. My parish has scheduled times for auricular individual confession, posted during Lent, for example. Other times, available on request. An Episcopal church in the area has permanent days/hours for individual confession posted on the service board outside.

 

[rightness]

This is more or less accurate, for those Anglicans who think in the way you are suggesting. And it is not merely that there are those who follow what is the current societal norm, on such things. There are those who actively have worked to establish that societal norm, while adopting it as their own norm, within the Church However, Anglicans differed on the nature and number of Sacraments before the issue of same sex appeared on the horizon. For some Anglicans, status of a sacrament would not affect the “need” to adjust to “changing conditions”. As to confession, whether considered a sacrament or a rite, it has been part of the Anglican liturgy from the beginning, as part of the preparation to receive the Eucharist.

Remember that generalizing about Anglicans is generally a mistake. Anglicans are odd, but not uniformly odd.

Yes, there is diversity, but I would argue the more an Anglican leans towards Catholic ideals, the less Anglican they become, and it works in the opposite towards protestantism, however, the Anglican belief system that I am referring to in my argument is what was originally the Anglican beliefs when it was founded by King Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth I’s establishment of the 39 articles.

In terms of aurical confession, in 1539, King Henry VIII reached out to the Lutherans and established the Six Articles which would remove aurical confession as required by divine law. If there are Anglicans who believe it is required, they are going against Anglican beliefs, thus being not Anglican. Similarly, I believe being Catholic is a state of mind, that if a person thinks they are Catholic, but they refused to believe in the authority of the Pope, they simply had stopped being Catholic. Religious belief isn’t a membership card. A person either believe in everything it represents or they’re just not a part of that belief. That’s why we always say if a person doesn’t believe in some things Jesus taught, they separate themselves from the Body of Christ. If a person is baptised, but is formed into a church that Jesus didn’t establish, then become members for a split second and lose that membership by separating themselves with their differing beliefs.

It’s like how if an American loves America, but they don’t think the media should be allowed to freely talk, then they don’t believe in the 1st Amendment and stop being American in the state of mind, but they are still American citizens.

My Anglican friend had told me before that true Anglicans at least have to follow the 39 Articles of Queen Elizabeth I. If an Anglican believes in transubstantiation, then they obviously are going against Article 28.

 

[GKMotley]

Hold off on reading that. Hit reply way too soon. Bad fingers.

 

[GKMotley]

Your Anglican friend is quite wrong. The Articles are not normative for Anglicans, generally, except in the case of the clergy of the CoE, who fall under the 1571 Parliamentary Act of Subscription (to the extent it might still be enforced), or who belong to an Anglican jurisdiction which does in some sense require assent to them There are such.

The XXXIX Articles (like the numerous preceding documents that had appeared over the previous 20 years or so), are religion as statecraft; how Elizabeth choose to govern her fractious and explosive Church, in the historical context of the late 1500s. They reflect the mind of the CoE on the pressing and disruptive issues of the Reformation, and are written broadly, with a balanced appeal to both the older doctrines of the Church, and the more reformed ones. They are, indeed, the visible face of the Via Media, the Elizabethan Compromise. Their relevance to Anglicans today depends on the attitude of the Anglicans in question. Generally, one may affirm, deny, or partially do either, depending on personal interpretation, or possibly on the strictures of whatever parish/province one belongs to. In fact, since many of them are “mere Christianity”, almost any Trinitarian Christian will find many things to agree with, without indulging in Tract 90 forms of exegesis. But, except as noted (and that is a technical point; CoE clergy are required not so much to affirm the Articles as not “dis-affirm” them), as an item, the Articles cannot be said to have any general application, to Anglicans generally, without reference to some governing authority.

Your opinion that the more Anglo-Catholic an Anglican might be, the more such a person is Catholic, I can certainly agree with. But please, tell me how the Six Articles removed the idea of auricular confession. (Sixthly, that auricular confession is expedient and necessary to be retained and continued, used and frequented in the Church of God).

You make a point or two that do you credit as a RC, but are not something an Anglican need assent to, Anglicans being Anglicans. And there is a good deal more I might say on the subject, it being something (Articles in particular) that I’ve been posting on for many years. But…my wife is calling for help on taxes, so that will take precedence.

Main point: Anglicans are motley. Hence, not simple to understand.

 

[HopkinsReb]

My Anglican friend had told me before that true Anglicans at least have to follow the 39 Articles of Queen Elizabeth I. If an Anglican believes in transubstantiation, then they obviously are going against Article 28.

There are some Anglicans who would say that and others who wouldn’t. We’re as motley on that point as on others. Question: if one cannot be Anglican without fully affirming the 39 Articles, were the Anglicans prior to their promulgation not actually Anglicans?

 

[GKMotley]

There is no reason an Anglican (save as noted) might have to affirm the Articles.

I likely will post the Lambeth 1968 Resolution on them.

BAck to taxes.

 

[HopkinsReb]

There is no reason an Anglican (save as noted) might have to affirm the Articles.

I likely will post the Lambeth 1968 Resolution on them.

BAck to taxes.

I’ll do it for you.

Resolution 43
The Ministry - The Thirty-Nine Articles
The Conference accepts the main conclusion of the Report of the Archbishops’ Commission on
Christian Doctrine entitled “Subscription and Assent to the Thirty-nine Articles” (1968) and in
furtherance of its recommendation:
(a) suggests that each Church of our Communion consider whether the Articles need be
bound up with its Prayer Book;
(b) suggests to the Churches of the Anglican Communion that assent to the Thirty-nine
Articles be no longer required of ordinands;
(c) suggests that, when subscription is required to the Articles or other elements in the
Anglican tradition, it should be required, and given, only in the context of a statement
which gives the full range of our inheritance of faith and sets the Articles in their historical
context.
Voting: Adopted, with 37 dissentients.

 

[GKMotley]

I like delegating.

There is a more complete accounting, of which that is the precis, but I rarely use it.

I can’t find the property tax info needed. I will speak harshly to the computer.

 

[GKMotley]

They were, at least, CoE.

Not all Anglicans are CoE.