New North American Anglican Province News Today

[kotek]

Hey Manualman,

While I think Kotek’s post is overly-zelous and the ideals he is setting up for the ACNA are a bit pie in the sky, your appraisal of how Anglicans view their Church is way off. They don’t view their Church as the authentic perfection that Jesus set up that sat in hiding until Henry came along. Nine out of ten Anglicans you speak with will tell you that Anglicanism isn’t perfect. They admit their short-comings and that they wish many things could change about their denomination. I have spoken with Anglican bishops who have told me personally that they loathe female ordination and that it should’ve never happened and they can’t figure out why it’s being tolerated. I’ve had a ton of Anglican priests tell me they wish the Church was more top-heavy at times, had better ecclesiastical order. They’ll tell you that the Anglican Communion is not a solid structure.

Anglicanism is a compromise, literally. Elizabeth’s compromise really shaped modern-day Anglicanism. It never claimed itself superior to Catholicism or Orthodoxy or put itself in the light that you are painting it.

True the Anglicans never claimed to be “the One True Church” merely a part of the greater “Church Catholic” in which the Gospel was taught and preached and the Sacraments duly and properly administered. Both Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox both claim to be “the One True Church” to the exclusion of each other; The EO see Rome as Schismatics who broke away from them who are in fact “the One True Church” and Rome sees the Eastern Orthodox as the Schismatics who broke away from them who are “the One True Church”. On the other hand Anglicans see the Church Catholic as composed of Rome, the EO, and themselves and that sin has divided us and split us apart. No one of us is “the One True Church” individually. Collectively as a whole we all are "the One True Church"and what has happened is because of sin and sinful members causing the division, we are all guilty of this, Rome, the East, and the Anglicans and we just have to make do as best we can in this state of fracture and broken Communion.

I think these folks in the ACNA are genuine and want to do right by the Lord. I think Kotek is excited and fired-up and believes it will work out. I hope it does. And I hope he’s right that the minority of women priests will be “grandmothered” away. But I don’t think so. I think it’s the year 2009, when feminism is at an all-time high, people are more liberal than ever, and like GKC said, the ACNA is really just the Episcopal Church reborn without gays and lesbians. It still is too tolerant of differences and divergent thinking. Women clerics will ruin this system and I believe it will only get worse.

In my own Anglican diocese here in San Joaquin, if you talk to parishoners all over, they are by and large OK about having women priestesses. 7 out of 10 folks I talk to are either “ok” with it or want to, as GKC says, “lay hands on hairspray.”

And the fact that the lay people have so much power in the Anglican churches through the vestry and conventions, etc. leads, unfortunately, to a system where the trends of our pop culture tend to influence these people. In Catholicism and Orthodoxy, pop culture has little effect on anything. Bishops and Cardinals and Popes could care less what society has to say about women priests, gays, contraception, or stem cells. But vestries are made up of lay folks who are subject to the trends and the times. This is essentially one facet of Anglicanism, it’s democratic structure, that led me away from it. I both loved and loathed how democratic it was. And coming to the Catholic Church I hated how monolithic and un-democratic it was. But when gay rights, women priests, abortion, and all sorts of other things are running rampant, that ‘intolerant’ and monolithic Catholic system looks pretty good!

I cannot foresee or believe that female ordination is going to wane in Anglicanism. Even in AFRICA they are voting in some dioceses whether or not to allow women priestesses?!! If Africa is selling out to it, you can bet the rest of the world will. They’ve THE gold standard of conservatism in the Anglican world.

I appreciate the zeal and idealism of Kotek but think he’s way off and too excited to think clearly on this one…

**I am trying to be optimistic. But while I can’t speak for the state of Eastern Orthodoxy I can tell you about Roman Catholics having been a Roman Catholic and knowing many people both lay and Clergy. Not only that my Anglican Rector knows many Catholic Priests and he said that from his discussions with them Rome is no better than the Anglicans, Rome just hides it better. Not “official Rome” but the Roman Catholicism of everyday Catholics and Roman Catholic Academics. Many if not most do not accept many Roman Dogmas.( and no not just on Contraception) The DRE at my former RCC Parish adamantly says that Rome will change its mind about Womens Ordination.

I remember one time during a Bible study at my former RC Parish during Lent some time ago we were discussing the meaning of Good Friday and the Atonement most of the people knew little and not much about it or why Jesus did what He did for us on the Cross. Most if not all of the adults in my Anglican Church could give anyone a good explanation of the Atonement.
**

 

[GKC]

JL: I think you are right, anyone who is deceived by this grandfather business, will get the business in the end.

I wish it were not so. But I am certain it is.

GKC

 

[jlhargus]

Orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is someone else’s doxy.

As is well known.

GKC

**I am trying to be optimistic. But while I can’t speak for the state of Eastern Orthodoxy I can tell you about Roman Catholics having been a Roman Catholic and knowing many people both lay and Clergy. Not only that my Anglican Rector knows many Catholic Priests and he said that from his discussions with them Rome is no better than the Anglicans, Rome just hides it better. Not “official Rome” but the Roman Catholicism of everyday Catholics and Roman Catholic Academics. Many if not most do not accept many Roman Dogmas.( and no not just on Contraception) The DRE at my former RCC Parish adamantly says that Rome will change its mind about Womens Ordination.

I remember one time during a Bible study at my former RC Parish during Lent some time ago we were discussing the meaning of Good Friday and the Atonement most of the people knew little and not much about it or why Jesus did what He did for us on the Cross. Most if not all of the adults in my Anglican Church could give anyone a good explanation of the Atonement.
**

JL: Well if many if not most do not accept Dogmas that is to there detriment and doesn’t speak well for their convictions, if indeed they are convictions. I think if push came to shove most if not all those would stand with the pope before stepping into a maze of compromises with split on split. The Church isn”t going to nor indeed can it change Christ’s teachings in some compromise for the sake of appeance and false unity.

 

[jlhargus]

I wish it were not so. But I am certain it is.

GKC

JL: Yes, I wish them well, but I think unless they start with a clean slate, it will come back to bit them.

 

[manualman]

Kotek,

You are ALL too right about catholic rank and file having every bit as much turmoil and dissent as the TEC, even. Guilty.

I’m not quite so sure you describe the catholic position on the Eastern Orthodox quite correctly. They, in catholic teaching, ARE considered part of the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic” Church. In schism, perhaps. Outside the church? No.

It may seem a bit uncharitable, but there are theological reasons that the Catholic Church recognizes the EO as part of the Church, but considers Anglicans ‘separated brethren.’ The difference is in the ‘apostolic’ part. The EO never abandoned it. Catholicism’s judgement is that Anglicanism did for at least a century - and once its gone, you can’t just conjure it back up.

But that’s a WHOLE other topic. Sorry to digress.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

**I am trying to be optimistic. But while I can’t speak for the state of Eastern Orthodoxy I can tell you about Roman Catholics having been a Roman Catholic and knowing many people both lay and Clergy. Not only that my Anglican Rector knows many Catholic Priests and he said that from his discussions with them Rome is no better than the Anglicans, Rome just hides it better. Not “official Rome” but the Roman Catholicism of everyday Catholics and Roman Catholic Academics. Many if not most do not accept many Roman Dogmas.( and no not just on Contraception) The DRE at my former RCC Parish adamantly says that Rome will change its mind about Womens Ordination.

I remember one time during a Bible study at my former RC Parish during Lent some time ago we were discussing the meaning of Good Friday and the Atonement most of the people knew little and not much about it or why Jesus did what He did for us on the Cross. Most if not all of the adults in my Anglican Church could give anyone a good explanation of the Atonement.
**

Hey Kotek,

I note your enthusiasm, nothing wrong with that. I just know Anglicanism and agree with GKC that it smells of The Episcopal Church–Reloaded!! Part Deaux!

Starting off day one with this compromise with women’s ordination is a bad start. And it shows a lack of fundamental firmness with theology. I personally believe women’s ordination to be repugnant and absurd. Biblically, historically, patristically, and common sense-wise, it is insane. And it makes the ‘sacraments’ completely invalid at a parish as well as sullies the bishop who allows it. It makes a laughing-stock of the priesthood and de-legitimizes it deeply.

Why could the ‘conservative’ bishops of the Common Cause Partnership not stand homosexuality for one second or abortion but they can swallow women’s ordination? In my mind, each of these sins is horrible in its own way. Each perverts God’s intention for us with regard to sex or gender. Why turn a blind eye to “laying hands on hairspray” as I’ve heard good ole’ GKC put it, but get outraged at Gene Robinson? They all stem from the same source material of following the trends, pop culture, and “the world.”

Hey, like Manualman said, I don’t disagree with you, friend, about the far-reaching lack of catechesis and fundamental biblical IQ’s of many Catholics. So many of them have no clue about the catechism, Mary, purgatory, the priesthood, confession, mortal vs. venial sins, or a plethora of other things. But I have to point this out—Episcopalians and Anglicans are notorious for being weak in theological and biblical knowledge as well. I sat through bible studies at my former Anglican parish and was completely shocked (jaw hanging open kind of stuff!) to see these folks from ages 40-80 asking the priest the most basic questions and having no theological compass at all. Most Anglicans I sat through bible study with didn’t know the basics even of stories about David or Saul, prophecies like Isaiah and Jeremiah, understandings of Israel and Judah or the divided kingdom, the Babylonian Captivity, and even often they didn’t know about the Mosaic period.

My friend, also a Catholic now, a convert from the Episcopal Church, were talking about this other day. He told me that he had been a Presbyterian, Evangelical, Anglican and now Catholic and it was the Anglicans who were the weakest on Scripture and theology in general.

I don’t say this in the spirit of “my daddy can beat up your daddy!” but rather the reality is Protestants have a wide range like Catholics do. I have met Evangelicals who can knock your socks off with scripture but have no clue about early church history, the councils, Constantine, Augustine, etc. I have met Catholics who know every cotton-pickin’ detail about Fatima, Lourdes, Divine Mercy, popes, you name it but are weak on scripture. And I have met Catholics who are biblically VERY insightful and literate. Some protestant groups are weak on the Bible, some are masterful. Apparently you went to a Catholic church that had some very poorly-catechized and Biblically-weak folks. That’s unfortunate. I’m glad you’re happy where you are and wish you all the luck and blessings of Christ. Just keep in mind that there are goobers in every denomination and brilliant minds in each as well. John-David Schofield, the Anglican bishop of San Joaquin is the most brilliant, talented, motivating man I’ve ever listened to as a bishop. I’d kill to have him in our Catholic diocese! The best! And a couple of priests I knew in our SJ diocese were first-rate, smart guys, and a few others I’ve met were shlameels.

I have to weigh in my two cents, however, and I can go on record saying, Rome will NEVER, I mean hell will freeze over, before women are ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. It will never happen, period.

I will also agree with you that that old term, “Catholicschism” is sometimes true. There are lots of renegade priests and nit-wits. There are hippied-up Catholics calling for women clerics and pro-abortion no-goodnicks among us. There are hardcore Catholics that are super traditional and I know some who never have a nice thing to say about the Church. But I will say that we have better structure, order, and a sense of law/organization than Anglicanism. As opposed to this ACNA business, any bishop in the RCC that proposed women’s ordination would be excommunicated and history. And anyone saying the stuff that Spong said through the years would’ve been OUT! The Anglicans have allowed buddhists, “out-there” environmentalists, feminists, abortionists, and every wacko under the sun to speak their peace alongside conservatives. There is a price to be paid with the whole conciliar, open-minded, democratic model. And the price is heresy as well as split, split, split.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Oh No! Not the Africans!!

Hey, Africans are people, too.

Hey Sedes Domi, I think you totally misunderstood and should re-read my post? I was NOT mocking or dehumanizing the Africans? Re-read it please. I was saying that Africa is CONSERVATIVE and very theologically-mature? It isn’t a put-down? What I’m saying is that it has been AFRICA that has actually been a missionary force for Americans in the last ten-fifteen years, not the reverse? We’ve rediscovered ourselves through their traditional, orthodox, holy ways and now, even the Africans, the gold-standard really, are starting to go liberal with women priests.

You totally misunderstood me. I know Africans are people, too, man! Come on! I can take a lot of criticism but not racism! My wife is Filipina! I’m not racist, just old-school with theology. God bless.

Scott

 

[Hesychios]

I wish them well, and hope they resolve the most pressing issues ahead.

BTW, Met Jonah would be foolish to pass up an opportunity to encourage them toward Holy Orthodoxy, but in this case I think he was largely barking up a tree. Principally because these are by and large of an evangelical stripe.

Still, if anyone really listened to him it may bear a little fruit in the future.

The following was already linked in post #6 by GKC.
VirtueOnline:

The Metropolitan was explicit:

Full affirmation of the orthodox Faith of the Apostles and Church Fathers, the seven Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed in its original form (without the filioque clause inserted at the Council of Toledo, 589 A.D.), all seven Sacraments and a rejection of 'the heresies of the Reformation."

His Beatitude listed these in a series of ‘isms’; Calvinism, anti-sacramentalism, iconoclasm and Gnosticism. The ordination of women to the Presbyterate and their consecration as Bishops has to end if intercommunion is to occur.

Just what I would expect him to say.

 

[Contarini]

JL: Yes, I wish them well, but I think unless they start with a clean slate, it will come back to bit them.

The concept of a “clean slate” is one of the most deceptive and destructive lies of Protestantism. As a Catholic, why would you accept such a weird idea? Aren’t we supposed to be following Sacred Tradition? Why not call us Anglicans back to that instead of exhorting us to make yet another attempt to reconstruct true Christianity (something Anglicans have been less interested in than other Protestants, as a rule, which is one reason many Anglicans don’t even think of themselves as Protestants)?

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Why could the ‘conservative’ bishops of the Common Cause Partnership not stand homosexuality for one second or abortion but they can swallow women’s ordination?

Because marriage and ordination are different. Marriage is about the order of nature. Ordination pertains to the order of redemption, in which there is neither male nor female.

I believe that most Catholics recognize that these are two very different issues, one being a moral issue and the other an issue of polity. A further point to bear in mind is that, as has been already noted, most of the ACNA folks are fairly low-church and do not give polity the importance that Catholics (including Anglo-Catholics) do.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is someone else’s doxy.

I think that’s overly cynical and postmodern (yes, I get a kick out of accusing a venerable and traditional gentleman like yourself of postmodernism!), and at the same time overly generous. I tend to agree with Ephraim Radner that orthodoxy depends on the existence of a unified Church, and the most Anglicans can be is “conservative.”

Edwin

 

[GKC]

I think that’s overly cynical and postmodern (yes, I get a kick out of accusing a venerable and traditional gentleman like yourself of postmodernism!), and at the same time overly generous. I tend to agree with Ephraim Radner that orthodoxy depends on the existence of a unified Church, and the most Anglicans can be is “conservative.”

Edwin

I’m at least as post-modern as Bishop Warburton. Maybe more.

But I disagree, in general. I think there is (was) an orthodoxy in historic Anglicanism, overarching the spectrum of doctrine and churchmanship that lies between the historic high/church/low church, Evangelical/Anglo-Catholic/ritualist internecine strife. That is, an umbrella orthodoxy of mere Christianity, under which those tugs of war played out. And that this Christian (not necessarily Anglican) orthodoxy is greatly lost, to Anglicanism in general. In that sense, at least, I speak of an orthodox Anglican.

GKC

 

[GKC]

Because marriage and ordination are different. Marriage is about the order of nature. Ordination pertains to the order of redemption, in which there is neither male nor female.

I believe that most Catholics recognize that these are two very different issues, one being a moral issue and the other an issue of polity. A further point to bear in mind is that, as has been already noted, most of the ACNA folks are fairly low-church and do not give polity the importance that Catholics (including Anglo-Catholics) do.

Edwin

I’d state this a little differently. ACNA’s general tone is set approximately at the level of TEC in its more conservative manifestations, as from around 6-8 years ago, to date. Its core, after all, is the 4 departed dioceses. While the more principled Anglo-Catholics have been draining out of TEC for over 30 years, their more pallid counterparts still remain. And this, IMO, is another point at which my occassional distinction between high/low church, as a reflection of churchmanship, and Anglo-Catholic as one of doctrine, seems applicable. What ACNA founded itself upon is still a reflection of the Anglican spectrum, as seen in 2009.

GKC

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

And here’s a couple of short updates today. Check these out! Both refer to women’s ordination in the ACNA. It’s really note-worthy that a female priest spoke at the event and I love the comment about how Duncan demanded women’s ordination be accepted that it was a “deal-breaker!”

post-gazette.com/pg/09175/979411-51.stm

And check out who is standing next to Duncan in the second linked article here…Click on the pic of Duncan and blow it upThink Duncan is liberal on the women’s issue or what? hmmmm…

timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/06/anglicans-in-the-us-new-church-is-born.html

Like “The Who” song says: Come meet the new boss! Same as the old boss!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I’d state this a little differently. ACNA’s general tone is set approximately at the level of TEC in its more conservative manifestations, as from around 6-8 years ago, to date. Its core, after all, is the 4 departed dioceses. While the more principled Anglo-Catholics have been draining out of TEC for over 30 years, their more pallid counterparts still remain. And this, IMO, is another point at which my occassional distinction between high/low church, as a reflection of churchmanship, and Anglo-Catholic as one of doctrine, seems applicable. What ACNA founded itself upon is still a reflection of the Anglican spectrum, as seen in 2009.

GKC

I can’t remember, GKC, if you said that your church was going to join with the ACNA? Is your bishop taking your church into this new body or are you guys staying where you are? If they do, you seem really as cynical as I am about it, what will you do? This is looking pretty TEC Part II to me, like I’ve said…

Scott

 

[GKC]

I can’t remember, GKC, if you said that your church was going to join with the ACNA? Is your bishop taking your church into this new body or are you guys staying where you are? If they do, you seem really as cynical as I am about it, what will you do? This is looking pretty TEC Part II to me, like I’ve said…

Scott

I agree, TEC.

AFAIK, our bishop has been sniffing around the edges, but we are not a part of the ACNA. I suspect the bishop favors us joining, but I have not been told we are doing so.

If we did join up, I’d watch a while, but I am accustomed to being unchurched. Was so for around 20+ years, during my Air Force days. Could be again, if necessary.

GKC

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I agree, TEC.

AFAIK, our bishop has been sniffing around the edges, but we are not a part of the ACNA. I suspect the bishop favors us joining, but I have not been told we are doing so.

If we did join up, I’d watch a while, but I am accustomed to being unchurched. Was so for around 20+ years, during my Air Force days. Could be again, if necessary.

GKC

Oh come on, GKC, with your love of Christ and passion for Church and love of church history, I can’t imagine you going “unchurched.” That’s not an option for a guy like you! You need to be a part of a Church and partake of communion and corporate worship. Don’t go back to those Air Force days!

 

[VARC]

JL: So the ACNA grandfathers women priest, but will not ordain others. If the ACNA recognizes the validity of already ordained women priests, how can they refuse to ordain others. Wouldn’t that be blatant discrimination? Those who do not ordain women do so because they have no authority from Christ. Some renegade bishops have ordained women. Yet it is not valid and was a useless act, those woman are still not valid priests. If women could be ordained validly then I would say the Church is wrong to withhold ordination. However they cannot be valid priests no matter who or howmany lay hands on them.

You are thinking form a Roman mindset of sacramental validity. Evangelical Anglicans don’t believe that ordinations are valid or invalid. Orders are not sacraments in the same way as baptism and communion. Rather, ordinations are licit or illicit. It would like the Roman Catholic Church ordaining an openly gay and practicing homosexual man a priest. Masses and baptisms performed by said priests would still convey grace but the ordination itself is not in conformity with the will of God.

 

[jlhargus]

Because marriage and ordination are different. Marriage is about the order of nature. Ordination pertains to the order of redemption, in which there is neither male nor female.

I believe that most Catholics recognize that these are two very different issues, one being a moral issue and the other an issue of polity. A further point to bear in mind is that, as has been already noted, most of the ACNA folks are fairly low-church and do not give polity the importance that Catholics (including Anglo-Catholics) do.

Edwin

JL: I’m not sure I follow what you are saying here. If there is neither male nor female in the sacrament of Holy Orders. Then there would be neither male nor female in the sacrament of Marriage. They are both sacraments of service in love. In marriage nature makes a difference. In the sacrament of Holy Orders nature makes a difference. The male nature represents the human male nature of Christ and the Church the bride of Christ represents the female nature. Priest are called father as they serve their spiritual family. A woman priest is not a father, the male sacramental sign, and would be akin to same sex marriage.

 

[GKC]

Oh come on, GKC, with your love of Christ and passion for Church and love of church history, I can’t imagine you going “unchurched.” That’s not an option for a guy like you! You need to be a part of a Church and partake of communion and corporate worship. Don’t go back to those Air Force days!

Well, the pay was better.

GKC