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Hi there, Canadian Anglican checking in. I've enjoyed following this thread as well as the previous Catholic thread. I've had one question on my mind for some time, and finally found the prompting to ask it. In describing my own views, I've come to really like a description provided by the Bishop of Calgary, Greg Kerr-Wilson who described himself as a, "conservative, liberal, evangelical, charismatic catholic Anglican."Berke Negri posted:You bring this point up in almost every post you make in this thread, but I'm pretty sure even you know that this view is not universal among Christians. It's probably more widely accepted than you would think. While it's true that, particularly in the United States, the view Luigi mentioned isn't in the majority, that doesn't make it incorrect. While it doesn't speak to the related issue of salvation, Luigi's position is supported by Jesus in Luke 13. Anyhow, to my question. For me the Anglican Communion and liturgy (religion) is a support and material tool used to aid in my relationship with God (faith). For some people here, it seems to be otherwise. I'm curious how others view it for themselves, and in particular for those who've scoffed when Luigi or anyone else trots out of bible verse in support of their views, how do you respond to the Augustine quote: "If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself."
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Oct 11, 2013 17:02
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I'm dating a Catholic girl and we've agreed to visit each other's churches next week. She is coming to my (Anglican) church for our Lessons and Carols service on Sunday morning, and then I will be joining her at her Catholic church Christmas Eve to hear her choir sing and then for midnight mass with her. I have a lot of Catholic connections within my family (maternal grandfather and my father's entire family) but they were all non-practising so I have actually only ever been in a Catholic church once and don't remember anything about it. Is there anything I should know as a guest? Normally I wouldn't be too worried about it. Even though I wasn't raised in the Anglican church, the one I currently attend is fairly high church so I figure I would be able to follow along with the liturgy reasonably well, however the particular church I will be attending offers mass in Polish, which I do not speak one word of. I know that the Catholic Church doesn't allow Anglicans to share in the Eucharist, but is there anything else I should know to avoid making a massive faux-pas or otherwise set back ecumenical relations a hundred years? I thought I had seen some questions like this in the thread before, but I couldn't find it... Maybe it was in the old thread?
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Dec 17, 2013 22:16
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Thanks for the suggestions guys. I have asked her for some general ideas, I thought I might also just grab some ideas from the thread here as there may be some things she might not think to mention to me, or I may not be asking the right kinds of questions. I had wondered about the blessings at the Eucharist. I'll be sure to ask what the procedure is to indicate you want a blessing.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:07
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IMJack posted:Real typically, go up with your arms crossed over your chest and keep them there when you are before the Eucharistic minister; they will take that as a cue to give you a blessing. Yeah, my church does the exact same procedure, but I wasn't sure if that was common in other parishes in the Anglican communion let alone in other denominations. I did manage to confirm that with her last night, though. The biggest thing I'm worried about is not asking the right questions before things get going. As I mentioned, it's a Polish church. The service is in Polish and I've been told many of the parishioners only speak Polish or at least have limited English. I'm kind of out of luck if I don't think to ask things like this before the service begins! She mentioned they still get a reasonable amount of guests (E&Cers) but still most of them would be Polish speakers. Thanks for the responses so far, everyone 
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Dec 18, 2013 19:51
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So, here's an interesting story for all of you. A few months back I found out I was never baptised. It turns out I had mixed up some memories of various protestant churches my parents had me attending when I was younger, and was, as an infant, attending a Pentecostal church. Long story short this came to light through various points around February, when I contacted my Rector to discuss the matter with him. He is taking a sabbatical with this Sunday being his last until September, so back in February we discussed various options and settled on an Easter Sunday baptism. It's been a very interesting Lent, reflecting on the meaning of the sacrament of Baptism and what it represents, and the Baptism itself was wonderful for the entire community. Our parish was absolutely packed this Sunday, and a lot of people really appreciated the opportunity to renew their own Baptismal covenants on Easter Sunday as we reflected on Christ's victory. The Liturgy itself was interesting as our Rector decided, as he knows me fairly well, to incorporate aspects of the Book of Common Prayer (British and Canadian) into the Book of Alternative Services (Canadian) liturgy in order to expand it a bit and hopefully make it a bit more meaningful (I normally attend our earlier BCP service, but Baptisms are only performed at the later BAS service). I had quite a few people coming up both to congratulate me as well as to say how wonderful and meaningful they found it for themselves to be witnesses to a baptism on Easter Sunday. Perhaps most gratifying was that one parishioner who is relatively new came up and asked if we could go for coffee sometime as he was curious about Baptism, which is awesome. Overall what an amazing day so far (now family and friends are over for Easter supper). Alleluia, Christ is risen!
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Apr 20, 2014 21:51
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Bel_Canto posted:Well, given some of the conversations about hymnody and liturgical music in this thread, we've got judgment of our own, haha. Not to mention a few other areas (theology, preference for theologians, politics, other secular beliefs)... Speaking of hymnody, though, does anyone know a good place to buy traditional hymns either set to chanting or organ? Preferably CoE or traditional British hymns from another Anglican national church, though really at this point I'm not being too picky as I can't seem to find anything.
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Jul 15, 2014 02:27
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Keromaru5 posted:I don't know about buying, but this page by an Episcopalian liturgist I like has links to chant scores, chant tutorials, and chant settings for liturgies, including a Benedictine Psalterium in Latin (the link was dead, but I retrieved it on archive.org). Neat site. It links back to the NLM and associated pages which I'm somewhat familiar with. I'll have to poke through it and see what I can find. The organist at my Parish suggested emailing the organ scholar from the local Anglican Cathedral, so I'll maybe try that as well....
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Jul 15, 2014 15:26
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Cythereal posted:I don't know - it was listed as "Victory Service - Wednesdays at 6:30 PM." I've never heard of it either. Call their church office and ask, then report back here since I doubt I'm the only one who's curious about it now.
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Jul 26, 2014 14:41
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In my ACC parish, we have banana bread, cheese and grapes with tea and coffee with the BCP service. On occasion well have some other kind of home baked goods like muffins or cookies. At the larger BAS service, there usually ends up being coffee, tea and juice along with store bought cookies and on occasion cakes. There only real differences between them are fewer people (35-50) attend the BCP service so it's easier to have home made goodies and there's less demand for Juice as there aren't any children, whereas the second service has childcare and thus children at the coffee time who want Juice and store bought cookies since of the 225 or so people who attend that service about 75-100 end up at coffee time.
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Jul 27, 2014 22:52
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Bel_Canto posted:It's the day after Thanksgiving, which means that my annual war against all modern Christmas music has commenced. No power on earth can stop me from blasting Praetorius and various Lessons and Carols excerpts night and day. Is it a war against Christmas music in general or just modern stuff? I find it amusing because in my parish our rector can't stand Christmas carols in Advent. He has gotten a fair amount of guff from various parishioners over the past two decades because for our traditional Lessons and Carols service he still doesn't allow Christmas Carols, only advent hymns, though there was a beautiful rendition of Handel's Messiah by the choir one year. As we were preparing before the service last week he commented that he'd made the illy mistake of turning on the local Christian radio station during the drive in to church and they're already playing Christmas music. Luckily for me, Veni Emmanuel is one of my favourite hymns so I get to hear it a few times during Advent.
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Dec 1, 2014 15:08
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Mr. Wiggles posted:He's quite right, and i keep the same rule at my parish. Advent is a time of waiting, with it's own distinct corpus of music. Christmas (and with it Christmas music) cannot begin until the Savoir is born. I quite agree. Hence the original question of whether it was a problem simply with modern Christmas music, or the fact that it was Christmas music being played during Advent. Regarding the Parish rule, I think for parishes which don't observe it and do allow Christmas hymns/carols prior to Christmas, it must detract from both the Advent season and Christmas itself. I absolutely love Lessons and Carols (the summation of Advent), candlelight Christmas Eve and Christmas morning itself. Beautiful services...
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Dec 2, 2014 06:55
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:http://adam4d.com/theological-liberal/ How about this one? http://adam4d.com/values/
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Dec 18, 2014 22:37
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De Nomolos posted:Trying to finally involve myself in this thread. I am Episcopal/Anglican and frustrated with the general lack of exploration among my small cohort in my church and diocese. I guess it is in part an effect of most my age having families and wanting more of that programming. Another factor might be what type of Anglicanism is typified by your parish. An evangelical Low Churchmanship might demand or expect different programming than a more latitudinarian Churchmanship.
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Dec 31, 2014 09:00
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De Nomolos posted:- it's high church There is an Alpha course (College and Careers) designed for that age group that, as I understand it, is meant to address fundamental issues in Christianity and Christian living for people in that age group. It provides for a solid basis for engaging in conversations at whatever level the group feels comfortable with. You could couple it with a compline service at the end of the evening if you wanted to go that route.
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Jan 3, 2015 23:38
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Arsenic Lupin posted:And after that, there are three centuries (at least) of Anglicans arguing with each other about just how much like the Catholic church they wanted the Church of England to be, with positions varying from "exactly like the Catholic church except no Pope" to "exactly like Lutherans except no Luther" to "brand new Church, just us and God". Which series of arguments are behind a lot of British politics of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and got a lot of people killed and taxed and forbidden from voting and what not. (American politics are much less tied to Church of England politics from after the Revolution onward, although there's a tricky period in which our apostolic succession was at best shaky because the USA didn't have any bishops at the time of the American Revolution.) Any time you hear somebody saying "High Church" you should think "more like Catholicism", "Low Church", "more like Protestantism", and "Broad Church", "Can't we PLEASE get along?" I disagree with some of what you've been writing about Anglican history. Maybe it's just because you've been simplifying a lot. Perhaps an effort post is in order? In respect of what I feel you may have simplified a bit too much: To go back to Henry, he didn't want a divorce, he wanted an heir. He went to the Pope for an annulment and would have gotten one if not for the fact that the Pope was under the thumb of the Holy Roman emperor and his armies, the HRE bring a relative of Henry's wife who would likely have used his military to remove the Pope from office had he permitted the annulment. As you correctly noted, however, this saga only acted as the catalyst that unleashed the forces of the English Reformation which was distinct from the continental Protestant Reformation, and which would have inevitably played out at least by the time of Henry's death and the reign of Edward VI. The development of Anglicanism during the English Reformation is something you pretty accurately summarised, though I think it somewhat fails to capture a broader definition of what the general goal of that Reformation was perceived as being (from the perspective of the reformers, at least). I've seen it summarised as an effort to restore the Catholic Church in the realm of England to the faith, order and practice of the Patristic Church under the authority of Holy Scripture. It sought to navigate a course that deleted the superstitious Roman additions to the faith while avoiding the over zealously excessive deletions to the faith of the puritans. Lastly in discussing Churchmanship, I think your definition of Broad Churchmanship leaves something to be desired because it seems to present it in terms of attempting to bridge a liturgical gap between High and Low Churchmanship when in reality it has its own theological basis distinct from the theological positions that underpin Low and High Churchmanship. Broad Churchmanship these days tends to be associated with modernism and the general disassociation with Anglicanism's Catholicity (which is maintained in both High and Low Churchmanship).
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Jan 26, 2015 09:11
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I'm always happy to have somebody else (A) chime in and (B) know more than I do. I hadn't actually intended to write much about Henry before--I had mostly wanted to see you expand on it since I had the sense that you knew quite a bit more than you had originally said and some of the way you summed it up kind of is a pet peeve of mine. Henry's split, as you point out, was political and not religious. Even the business with the monasteries was political and again not religious. There were a lot of factors that played into the English Reformation, but far too often the view from outside (and worse yet, far too often the view of Anglicans) is that Henry wanted to make himself the supreme religious authority in England because the Pope made him mad and that it was all because he was a lusty fellow who wanted a divorce. At any rate, thank you for the follow up post! There were one or two little tidbits in there I had forgotten (or perhaps never knew). Churchmanship is something I find really quite interesting because it is something that is somewhat distinct in Anglicanism. As with many things, conceptions of Churchmanship have changed over time. Your summation of "can't we all just get along" has a good deal of merit as it in some ways originated as a way of attempting to find a compromise position between Anglicanism and Puritanism. Ultimately, the term Latitudinarianism became associated it with it (those who wanted to conform to CoE practice, but not doctrines). As Anglicanism came to dominate in respect of doctrines and there was no longer a need to compromise between the two groups, Broad Churchmanship essentially became associated with Latitudinarianism. It was essentially a view that suggested that there was merit to the Church of England as a social institution, but that people shouldn't get hung up on religious doctrine. In modern times, then, it's easy to see how Broad Churchmanship is associated with those who like the community, liturgical/traditional beauty of Church, but who are less keen on Christian faith and doctrine, and who prefer to, in essence, pick and choose in order to base what doctrine they hold more on secular faith. To use an example, in the Anglican Church of Canada (where I am, though this is true in TEC as well) the majority of the supporters of women's ordination would be considered Broad Churchmen. Unlike someone like say Bishop Wright who has made a theological and scriptural argument in support of at the very least the ordination of women as Priests and Deacons, if you look back at the arguments being presented in the 1970s in favour of women's ordination, it was on the basis of secular ethics and equality arguments, not on the basis of anything particularly Scriptural. That isn't to say that all advocates of women's ordination were that way, and it's also not to suggest that opponents of women's ordination didn't have proper arguments either, but it gives you a glimpse into the position of Broad Churchmanship today. For a more recent example, the Anglican Church of Canada held a public consultation on the issue of opening the sacrament of Holy Matrimony to homosexual partners who have been married in Canada. If you review many of the submissions, it's quite plain to see which are broad church in the sense that they worship in the Anglican setting, but they do not hold much respect for Anglican (or Christian, in many cases) doctrine. This contrasts with High Churchmanship and Low Churchmanship, which both place much higher value on Anglican (and Christian) doctrine, though they approach it from different perspectives. If I had to sum them up, I would do so in terms of sacramentalism. High Churchmanship tends to place higher sacramental value on the Eucharist, while low churchmanship tends to place a higher sacramental value (which is to say viewing it sacramentally, but not counting it as a sacrament) on God's word written. High Churchmanship tends to be associated with Anglo-Catholicism, though there are also numerous Liberal Christians who are very High Church, while the Low Church tends to be populated by the more Evangelical and Charismatic wings of Anglicanism. Churchmanship is at its base a method of realising and expressing doctrinal beliefs. High Churchmanship (more formal liturgical style) empowers the sacramental primacy of the Eucharist, while Low Churchmanship (less liturgical formality, and much more protestant in appearance in terms of priests often not being robed, lack of procession, etc) tends to express similar core doctrinal concepts while emphasizing the freedom we hold in Christ, and thus the lack of need to be confined by rigid liturgical traditions. I personally hold a more Anglo-Catholic (if you want to be pedantic I would more accurately be described as an evangelical, charismatic, Catholic Anglican) with a preference for High Churchmanship (in order to express my doctrinal views) but my home parish is much more low church simply because it more closely holds to my doctrinal beliefs. Fun times! I have experience worshipping in other Catholic fellowships (both OCA Eastern Orthodox ans Roman Catholic) but I've never quite experienced the same concept as Anglican Churchmanship. Anyone care to correct me or clue me in?
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Jan 27, 2015 04:55
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Smoking Crow posted:It isn't because if someone started preaching something not along orthodox teaching, they'd get called in front of their bishop for potentially starting a heresy. Pretty much what I thought. Every once in a while I wish the Bishop would just use his authority to smack people down, but even though I have an orthodox bishop (versus some diocese where they have bishops who agree with or otherwise have views that cause them to accept Broad Churchman when they go into heterodoxy) he's tended to try to exercise restraint simply because my diocese is extremely divided. The amount of politics involved is frustrating, but at the same time there are similar types of political issues that crop up on occasion in the RC/EO churches as well, so it's not like it's entirely a unique problem. It's interesting to note that Broad Churchmanship is pretty much limited to the West, because Broad Churchmanship has a limited missionary background because (possibly because it might be viewed through a lense of colonialism due to its secular outlook), so when you look at the vast majority of Anglicans who are in the Global South, they tend to be of a more evangelical and charismatic tradition, and also tend to be from a more Low Churchmanship. Churchmanship is an interesting concept to explore if only because it requires that you look into the historical context of so many different things that lead to its modern incarnation.
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Jan 27, 2015 15:25
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System Metternich posted:Is this a Catholic version of The Onion? That's glorious Yes, and it generates predictably Onion like levels of oblivious responses on Facebook on the occasions where it's passed around in Christian groups I'm a part of. It's wonderful.
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Jan 27, 2015 17:02
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Thirteen Orphans posted:Episcopal and Orthodox goons: What are your Churchs' teachings on their teaching authority? Can they and when do they teach something, for lack of a better word, infallibly? Is a distinction made between doctrinal teaching such as the Trinity and Incarnation and moral teachings? XX. Of the Authority of the Church. The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation. From the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. Essentially the Anglican claims limited teaching authority and cannot teach anything contrary to Scripture or more importantly it cannot require any teaching to be followed as dogma which is not necessary to salvation. So for instance a priest may say that he believes St Mary was assumed into heaven, but may not teach that to his congregation as something required to be believed in order to be Anglican. All that said, there are plenty of Anglicans who defy the traditional boundaries of Anglican doctrine, which is one of the reasons for all the schisms over the past century.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:46
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Ms. Happiness posted:I'm going to try and read the Daily Office everyday...and just be a nicer person to people I work with. I've fueled the gossip mill at work so I'm just gonna try and stay out of that. Hey there daily office Lenten discipline buddy!
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Feb 20, 2015 08:59
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Ms. Happiness posted:If you don't know about it, http://www.missionstclare.com/ is awesome for Daily Office. You can also get an app on your phone. Thanks. I'm using the Daily Prayer app and my Book of Common Prayer, but it's always good to have additional resources to call on! The biggest problem I've run into with CoE apps is they all take the date based on GMT and that can cause problems particularly for evening prayer because it starts to give you readings and collects for the wrong day!
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Feb 22, 2015 21:49
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Needs More Ditka posted:Now that everything is finally official, on Saturday my wife and I are having our marriage convalidated and I'm going to be Baptized at the Easter Vigil. I'm really excited and thanks to all the Goons that helped me make this decision and stick with it! With respect to automatic excommunication, does being a goon cause automatic excommunication in the Roman Catholic Church?
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Mar 20, 2015 04:54
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Search the Scriptures on Ancient Faith is also great for theology, though it does it in the form of a Bible study, focused on Patristic exegesis. Anglican Studies by the Ven. Fr. Michael McKinnon is another great series that focuses specifically on doctrinal theology of traditional Anglicanism through the lens of the fathers and the early church. Anglican Studies is definitely available on iTunes, but I don't know what the deal with Ancient Faith Radio is.
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Mar 26, 2015 15:40
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Beyond the obvious gaydar joke, that would suggest 70% of the priesthood did not discern a true calling to the priesthood but found it to be the simplest way to live a celibate lifestyle. That's pretty distressing. Wouldn't it make more sense to suggest cultural values were at play in terms of Cold War politics and anti-communism, leading to a stronger cultural role for Christianity in the West without necessarily meaning a deeper faith? Again this discounts discernment of a true calling to Holy Orders. Last thought is celibacy doesn't seem to be a defining characteristic of the decline of the priesthood since it seems to be reflected in other Christian traditions which do not enforce a discipline of clerical celibacy.
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Apr 23, 2015 04:05
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It also sounds entirely like something you would hear mentioned at the council of the general synod here or at General Convention in the US.
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Apr 23, 2015 05:20
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Keromaru5 posted:Standard practice in TEC is that all baptized Christians may receive communion. There has been a lot of excitement over the election of Michael Curry as the new presiding Bishop in that he does not appear to be afraid of the word Jesus, unlike his predecessor, however his invocation of the phrase "Jesus help me, traditionalists exist," during his first public Eucharist as Presiding Bishop at the close of General Convention didn't exactly win over traditionalists in the audience.
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Jul 17, 2015 14:12
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Paladinus posted:
Wtc indeed. She referred to Jesus as Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer, but simply not as Jesus. Also I beli very she avoided references to Jesus as the Son or Lord because those might be offensive. Western Anglicanism has a lot of issues with respect to falling away from Christian norms, but The Episcopal Church has its own special brand of crazy.
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Jul 17, 2015 23:39
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How did it work?
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Keromaru5 posted:To me, it's sort of like Man of Steel's reluctance to say "Superman." Given the fact that she was Presiding Bishop for 9 years it's more like watching Smallville and expecting to hear superman, flying and the iconic suit. Also, it's worth noting that litigation against the Diocese of South Carolina ended up costing closer to $40 million and TEC lost the suit, which everyone was expecting for the same reason that every parish that has tried to sue their diocese when they leave has lost. Property belongs to the diocese, not the parish or the national church. Quite a gong show. The Anglican Church of Canada has its own issues, but our Primate at least is willing to name God and Jesus as such. Lutha Mahtin is probably right to some degree, but it's also specifically the term Jesus and Son of God which is concerning (along with God the Father). The review committee that steered amendments to Holy Matrimony to allow for its application to same-sex relationships is doing a review of their main service book to remove "offensive" gendered language like God the Father or even God the Son as their next priority for the 2018 GC. There are folks in the senior echelons that have it in their heads that the only way for Christianity to thrive is if you take out all those offensive Christian bits.
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Jul 18, 2015 05:11
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They haven't made it clear, all they've said so far that I've seen has been a vague reference to God the Father being gender non-inclusive and thus they term it offensive. Here's my best possible explanation for the mindset behind what's happening in TEC these days. This was from a news article/interview given to a member of their commtitee exploring same-sex marriage prior to General Convention (they approved an amendment to Canon law stating that the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony can be given to any persons who may legally be married in the United States, an adept move to allow for Matrimony to be extended to other non-traditional marriages without further debate or amendment of the Canons): “How long are we going to allow documents like the Book of Common Prayer [American 1978 BCP] to contain language that is explicitly discriminatory?” asked the Rev. Will Mebane, interim dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Buffalo and a member of the Task Force on the Study of Marriage. “Demands for the Confederate flag, a symbol of hate, to come down have been heard. … It is time to remove our symbol that contains language of discrimination.” What’s more, committee members said, the current task force has discovered how ill-equipped the church is to minister to unmarried people, who represent the majority of adults in America. In its next phase, the task force would consider a host of issues unrelated to same-sex marriage, including how to reach and care pastorally for those who cohabitate or do not ever intend to marry. “People who are talking about marriage are asking for a very conservative alternative,” said Michael Wood, a deputy from the Diocese of New York. “The progressive position is much more a position of not marrying at all. ... What is the church’s response to the call to give to that new cultural reality?” http://livingchurch.org/prayer-book-discrimination The same sense of needing to respond to cultural mores is leading the massive theological shifts within TEC, because they see opinion polls that say young folks don't mind same-sex marriage and think discriminating against women is wrong and from an external perspective view the Church as homophobic and patriarchal, so regardless of theological Christian norms (they have made only the thinnest efforts to provide rational theological justifications for canonical changes such as same-sex marriage even if there were a compelling case to be made, and I'm not saying this to try and start a debate on the issue here, just to reinforce the point that it doesn't really matter what Scripture and Tradition say to the people making these changes in TEC) they want to do what they can to try and attract fresh young faces to congregations which are shrinking every day. The problem is that those same folks who are in that young, progressive pro-SSM/etc, etc, mindset are also extremely sceptical of religion and while they might cheer a church that approves Same-Sex Marriage and hold it up as an example to others, it's not going to convince them to enter the doors of a church, because the Church has failed to give them any reason they need or would want to come to meet J... I mean that guy who the Presiding Bishop doesn't like anyone to mention! The new Presiding Bishop is theologically similar to the previous one, however the big difference is he comes from the southern evangelical persuasion. So now TEC has gone from, "come as you are and be affirmed," to, "come and meet JEEEEZUS," though I'm pretty sure it's still verboten to mention sin or why you need Jesus. Interesting times we live in, for sure. Look to see much of the same things happen in Canada next year when we hold our General Synod and approve Same-Sex Marriage and make further attempts to replace the use of the Apostle's Creed in the Daily Offices with poetry that uses less specific and gender neutral terms to refer to God and Christ.
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Jul 18, 2015 16:28
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Paladinus posted:So has this whole debacle affected your Liturgy in any way already or is the Creed the first target? There was a Trial Use liturgy for Morning and Evening Prayer released just before Advent that included the new Affirmation of Faith to be used instead of the Creed, but it has since been updated and replaced with the use of the Apostle's Creed or Shema Israel. I just looked it up now because I was going to link to it. The reaction must have pretty broadly been negative so that's good. That said if you read the hymnal (Common Praise) that was released in 1998, it already contains plenty of changes in it to remove gendered references to God, Christ, etc. If anyone is interested, this article highlights some of the changes that were made to the language in the hymns between the 1938 hymnal and the 1998 hymnal. It includes removing references to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in favour of the gender neutral Creator, Word/Redeemer and Spirit, and referring to the Holy Spirit as she in other hymns. It also introduces references to God as Mother. With that hymnal already having been authorized, the revision of the Daily Offices is now being viewed as the first step towards the complete revision of the Prayer Book to use gender inclusive language and remove "offensive" terminology (such as God the Father). In the preamble to the new trial use liturgy it describes the goal of the language revision to be developing faithful and fair language. The trial use psalter actually defines what that means as: "(i) faithful to the intent of the writers of the psalms as poems expressing the relationship between God and the people of Israel and (ii) fair to current users of the psalms who have found the predominately masculine language a barrier to the integration of the psalms into the life of prayer and worship." So basically, there are two people working on this revision with a goal of creating liturgies, a psalter and collects that reflect their own personal biblical exegesis and avoid using masculine references to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. The next project after this is completed will probably be a review of other occasional services (Baptism will be first as an additional baptismal promise relating to the environment was added last year after General Synod but no new printings of the BAS have yet been authorized) and the final revision will be the service of Holy Communion itself, which will likely be revised only after TEC has published its new BCP as the BAS borrowed heavily from the American 1979 BCP when it was made in terms of eucharistic prayers. Fun times, and definitely not a wonder that of the two largest Anglican churches in my city the largest is traditionalist (can you guess whether or not it's my home parish?), the second largest is now an Anglican Use parish in the Ordinariate.
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Jul 19, 2015 06:09
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HEY GAL posted:This is why I call God It. You can also start seriously thinking about apophatic theology, too. It is very impersonal, and given the limitations and imprecision of language opening spaces for misinterpretation and false teaching, as the points about beards suggest, then surely any changes will simply create new problems? Rather than deeming language offensive and trying to change it, wouldn't it be more productive to focus on correcting the kinds of false teaching that creates the idea that women are somehow made leas in the image and likeness of God than men simply because God's identity had been revealed as our Father?
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Jul 20, 2015 15:53
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Paladinus posted:Thanks for the write-up. I assume that like in Church of England proper, parishes are allowed a lot of liturgical freedom and none of those changes can be enforced on everyone in the country. Is that right? Sorry I missed this before. Yes, there's a fair amount of flexibility. In the CoE the 1662 Book of Common Prayer remains the standard authorized service book, however the more recent Common Worship has revised language and servives for all occasions. They are basically starting the process of seeing the pressure for gender revision in liturgical texts, but despite basically dealing with the same pressures the CoE tends to move more slowly than the ACC/TEC just due to the differing rules over there on how revisions are made. In terms of Common Worship, it provides for a significant amount of latitude for the celebrant to altar the language by common use of the rubric "These or similar/other suitable words are to be said" Which basically means you can use bits of other authorized liturgical texts (generally from other parts of the Anglican Communion, so for instance I have actually used the Order for Night Prayer (Compline) when preparing the liturgies for parish retreats I am involved in, simply because they've done a decent job of it and there is no modern language version of compline available in official Canadian authorized texts (BAS only has morning and evening, though the BCP has mattins, vespers and compline). In the UK, this means that the latitude from Common Worship allows people to, for instance, use elements of the New Zealand Prayer Book (probably the most modernist prayer book I've ever seen). By way of example, this is the Lord's Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book: Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen. This contrasts with the more recognizable Lord's Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: OUR Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen. The Book of Alternative Services in Canada allows similar substitutions of "other suitable words" per the rubric and I know of at least one Parish in my diocese which has, and probably still does, use elements of the New Zealand Prayer Book. Also I should probably apologize. I doubt anyone in this thread is going to be convinced one way or the other on the issue of the permissibility of identifying God, Christ, etc using non-traditional terms. I didn't mean to start a debate on the point, I was just mentioning a few of the recent developments in Anglicanism as it seemed somewhat topical and a few folks were interested in hearing a bit more.
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Jul 20, 2015 20:21
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Smoking Crow posted:That is not the Lord's Prayer. It doesn't follow the Greek at all I'm certainly not one to disagree. If I hadn't actually identified it, I suspect no one here (unless they were already familiar with the NZPB) would have been able to identify it. The NZPB has tonnes of syncretism as well, where they have adapted aboriginal prayers which seems somewhat animistic to me. It's something that you see a bit of in Canada as well. That type of text is what the end goal of these liturgical revisionist movements are for the Anglican Communion, though. While they aren't getting there yet--given the reaction against the proposed Affirmation of Faith causing it to be removed from the Trial Use liturgy--but they're taking an incremental approach to some of these changes. Review the piece on the Hymnal I posted earlier and you can see similar references to God as our mother and father, removal of references to humanity's sinful nature and so forth. It may bear no resemblance to traditional Christian liturgies/hymnody, but it isn't considered offensive in the way that reformers feel it needs to be revised under these principles of fairness.
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Jul 20, 2015 22:20
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I grew up on the NKJV, my current parish uses NIVUK as its standard text and I prefer a combination of ESVUK, NRSVAE and occasionally the Orthodox Study Bible (NKJV) for various personal study purposes. I also quote from some of the older Roman Catholic versions (DR, etc) on occasion when I want to make a cheeky point about the saints, priests, etc with my low church friends. It's great to have a variety of editions to review.
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Jul 21, 2015 01:03
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Cythereal posted:Speaking as an Evangelical (even if I'm currently attending a Lutheran church), the last few pages have been utterly incomprehensible to me. The SBC's stance on the Trinity is "God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, but it honestly doesn't matter much, focus on the parts of the Bible applicable to people today." I'm an Anglican and TEC's position is barely comprehensible to me, as it is barely comprehensible to the majority of the Anglican Communion and the reason their communion is impaired with a majority of Anglicans. There's all kinds of insanity going on, but when you get down to it, pretty much all Christian denominations and traditions these days have their own special brand of crazy. I mean they'd have to for goons to join them.
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Jul 22, 2015 01:31
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Thirteen Orphans posted:I don't think it is out-there to worry that society might reach a point where people religious ministers need to marry certain oppressed classes. It would likely never happen in the US, with its religious zeitgeist, but the Scandinavian countries? Maybe within my lifetime. (I'm mid-twenties), though I honestly don't think it'll happen. I do, however, think it's a little out there to think people who believe that same-sex marriage is incompatible with orthodox Catholicism (which I assent to because of my understanding of deference to Magisterial authority) will be persecuted to the point of becoming an actual oppressed class of people, like, say, Jews in Europe. Just to clarify. The Anglican Church of Canada's Commission on the Marriage Canon (established to review issues relating to amending the canon to extend the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony to same-sex couples) included within its consultation a legal review of whether or not a conscience clause would provide any legal protection to priests who refuse to offer the sacrament to same-sex couples because they believe it to be against the will of God. The conclusion of the response was that any such priest, regardless of the what the canon provided for, would be liable to prosecution under Canada's human rights laws. If the matter were to go before the courts, the law would probably find that there are reasonable grounds not to compel a priest to solemnize the civil marriage. Yet were it to go before one of the quasi-judicial human rights tribunals as the legal consultation mentioned, it would be quite possible to see the priest convicted, fined and otherwise sanctioned by the tribunal. Fears of religious persecution in the West really aren't entirely unfounded, they're just made ridiculous by people focusing way more on things like the war on Christmas or whatever other zany persecution seems to be prevalent, and always pale in comparison to the type of religious persecution ongoing in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Just today, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America reported that one of his colleagues, a bishop in the (Anglican) Church of Nigeria was kidnapped. It's not clear if he's been kidnapped for ransom or if the intention is to execute him. Contrast that with hypotheticals about being fined by a government tribunal and again it all seems rather petty.
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Sep 5, 2015 02:15
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In the US, this the case. In Canada, as I mentioned before, any priest or pastor could be pursued in a human rights tribunal for refusing to marry a same-sex couple, so long as their tradition permitted it at all as it nullifies any religious defence so far as the tribunal is concerned.
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Sep 7, 2015 22:42
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The Guardian article doesn't really do a good idea at all of articulating what Abp Welby is trying to do, or what the situation is like. There are different types of Churchmanship, but Churchmanship doesn't really relate directly to theology. It used to be you talked about three streams of Anglicanism (evangelical, charismatic and Catholic) which reflected theological leanings. Typically evangelicals are associated with Low Churchmanship along with charismatics while High Churchmanship tends to be associated more with Anglican Catholics. There are historic reasons for that, namely the eras in which their theological origins are found. Because of that association, people often equate Low Churchmanship with evangelicalism and High Churchmanship with Catholicity, and is further complicated by the fact that Broad Churchmanship itself really does in its modern context refer to what a number of folks here have called progressive or liberal Christianity. It tends to be associated with revisionist values and theologies. Bishops and priests who don't believe in God (and there are plenty) tend to be associated with this viewpoint. So, to take it back to what's happening here... The majority of Anglicans worldwide, and the areas where the Church is growing, are in the Global South, primarily Africa, where the dominant theologies are evangelical. In the West (essentially the UK, Australia, TEC(US), and Canada), the Anglican Church is dieing. The US looks particularly bad because of how many traditionalist Anglicans have left for continuing Churches like ACNA. The theology, if it can be called that, tends to be split quite evenly between Broad on the one hand and the traditional streams of Anglicanism on the other. The reason I express scepticism at calling what's happening in the US and Canada theology is that quite literally Bishops and Priests have justified their actions which have impaired TEC/ACC communion with the rest of the Anglican Communion through the lense of human justice issues and have literally said, "This isn't an issue of theology, it's an issue of justice" to authorize such things as the ordination of women and the extension of holy matrimony to homosexuals (in the US, it will not happen in Canada until 2016/2018, just before I'm ordained). When those types of declarations happen, the Global South pretty much steps up and says no, and we end up with impaired communion between the main Western Churches and the majority of the Anglican Communion. There are good relations at the local level between traditionalist parishes and diocese and the Global South, and there are higher level connections between the Global South and the continuing Anglican movement. But TEC and ACC in particular (the CoE is behind the times in terms of these issues, they only authorized the ordination of women as priests in the 90s compared to the 70s in Canada and the US, and as bishops only a few months ago) can't play nice when it comes to those movements, so they have excluded them from the Communion. This doubly irritates the Global South since there are official Anglican Communion agreements which have been violated by the United States and Canada on moratoriums on issues relating to homosexuality. So that causes them to go outside of Anglican Communion channels. This caused a majority of Provincial Primates to boycott Anglican Communion events, to the point where more primates were showing up to GAFCON (A realignment/continuing movement conference) events than the Anglican Consultative Council, which is one of the main bodies of the Anglican Communion. By proposing this change, essentially the Archbishop is paving the way for the Anglican Communion to continue to exist as a legitimate organization, rather than just an organization on paper. It's really hard to compare it to anything going on in any other traditions. There might be some parallels to some of the effort posting that was being done about politics in the Eastern Orthodox Church a while back. Speaking of the Orthodox, there was an interesting development recently between ACNA and the Russians. Here's one discussion primarily from the Orthodox perspective that I was listening to the other night: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/anglicans_and_orthodox It might give some insight into what's happening in the Archbishop's announcement today with respect to ACNA and promoting integration. At the end of the day, all I can say is that the practical effect will not be do encourage provinces to end communion with one another, but it will open the communion to provinces which have previously been excluded, and it will also help restore some level of confidence in the Communion among the Global South. tl:dr: If you find the churchmanship stuff confusing, ignore it because it doesn't really matter. All you really need to know is that in the 1970s the US and Canada decided to toss theology to the wind and promote the secularization of the church through the lense of justice, which led to innovations such as the ordination of women, extension of holy matrimony to same-sex couples and in the future in the United States is seeking to legitimize pre-marital sex and communion without baptism. The Global South wasn't too keen on that and it caused an impairment of relations between the conservative/traditionalist south and the west which was being led by revisionists, though the numbers fluctuate a lot diocese to diocese. In response to that, some conservatives started breaking off in the west in the realignment/continuing movement, which the south strongly supported but the west has excluded from the communion. Over the years that made the Anglican Communion lose its purpose, so the Archbishop of Canterbury has announced plans to effectively admit many of the (large) continuing movement fellowships into the communion in an effort to bring the global south (which accounts for the majority of Anglicans) to the table.
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Sep 17, 2015 02:23
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You've been reading the synod documents lately, have you? Or any of the commentary of the day? Heck even the current day articulation of the ordination of women is as a matter of equality (justice) and not theology. For an excellent ACC example read the public consultation on same-sex marriage and look for any theological arguments. Less than half of the submissions have any reference to proper theology in the Anglican tradition, half the arguments are against the solemn declaration (ironic in the context of this discussion on the Anglican Communion as the solemn declaration defines our doctrinal Communion with Canterbury) and there's definitely a strong appeal to secular conceptions of justice.
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Sep 17, 2015 03:55
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Anglican Effortpost: re Henry VIII situation, there are more details. First off, Henry's motivation for the remainder of his life was rooted in a desire to obtain an heir. Beyond removing the authority of the Bishop of Rome over the Catholic Church in the realm of England (and thus over England itself), he maintained Roman Catholic teaching (which I believe allowed him to buy indulgences for all the nasty things he did). His desire was not for divorce as is commonly stated, but as was mentioned in this thread previously he wanted an annulment. It normally would have been given on the basis of the original marriage having been invalid (Lev 20. 21 bars the marriage of one's brother's wife; Catherine had briefly been married to Henry's brother Arthur before his death). So all well and dandy and under normal circumstances, the annulment would have been granted. Heck, annulment were granted for lesser pretexts in the case of royalty seeking to create an heir (due to the need to maintain stability and avoid Catholic kingdoms going to war against one another). The Bishop of Rome at the time, Pope Clement VII, was tied up in a lot of continental politics, particularly between the Italians, French and Germans. In fact, by the time Henry VIII petitioned him for the annulment, Rome happened to be besieged by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was the nephew of Catherine of Aragon. Clement wasn't going to risk Rome being sacked if Charles decided to intercede further in support of his aunt, so the annulment was denied. Henry had no issues with Roman Catholic dogmas, so ultimately all that happened under his reign, with respect to the Church, was to remove the authority of the Bishop of Rome over the Catholic Church in the realm of England. He ultimately did all the rest of his nonsense, but if you look at the doctrines and theologies of the English Church at this time, there is no significant change. The continental reformation never extended directly to England, beyond later influence on the English Reformers once the English Reformation itself was truly underway in the following decades. Henry did not found the English Church, nor is it intellectually honest to suggest that his personal misdeeds tarnish all subsequent developments of the Catholic Church in England. If that mentality is maintained, then there are a long line of Roman bishops whose actions have surely tarnished the Roman Catholic Church farm more than anything Henry himself did. re Via Media (the middle way) is a particularly frustrating concept in that its popular application, particularly in the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada is 100% divorced from its historical origins and applications elsewhere in the Anglican Communion. Historically it was a concept that came to define the results, rather than the intentions or in any sense of compromise, of the English Reformation and the development of Anglicanism in the 17th century. The goal of the reformers wasn't to compromise. They didn't look to the continental reformers on the one hand and Rome on the other (and some say the East, Hooker supposedly was in touch with the Greeks) and then kinda just pick a little bit of this and a little bit of that and hope it would make everyone happy. When people look to the modern policies of TEC (The Episcopal Church of the United States) it's very easy to see that because TEC doctrinally tends to play fast and loose with the authority of Scripture and the creeds. Historically (and again for the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide) this wasn't the case. When the English Reformation was underway, the goal was not compromise but to restore the the Catholic Church in the Realm of England to the faith, order and tradition of the the Early Church under the authority of Holy Scripture, avoiding the excessive deletions of the continental reformers and the superstitions and innovations of medieval Roman Catholicism. TEC trying to be all things to all people is an abberation. Their latest figures say it has about 1,800,000 members out of a global Anglican Communion of about 75,000,000 and a few million more Anglicans who are not a part of the Anglican Communion. TEC's numbers continue to drop. Demographics wise it is one of the oldest and whitest denominations in the US and rather than saying, "well, we elected a presiding bishop who was afraid of the name of Jesus," they think the church is dieing because they haven't done a good enough job telling everyone they're perfect and have no reason to come to church because how can God sanctify them by his grace when they're already okay. They very much believe in compromise and it has led, for instance, to impairment of communion with the majority of worldwide Anglicans. That leads into the next topic, that of the Anglican Communion itself. The Anglican Communion is a body that contains the majority of worldwide Anglicans in communion with eachother and with England itself. Its history relates to the development of Anglicanism abroad and how it would maintain communion with Canterbury. For example, in Canada, the Solemn Declaration of 1893 was proclaimed by the first General Synod in Canada when the Church of England in Canada became independent of the Church of England itself (the name was not changed to Anglican Church of Canada until the 1950s). As more of these independent churches (called national provinces) developed, a new mechanism was needed to govern in some manner how they would relate to one another and not just the Church of England itself. So the Anglican Communion was formed. It is not authoritative. It can issue statements, but the Archbishop of Canterbury is not its head and doesn't, for instance, promulgate doctrines through it. Each bishop remains sovereign in his own diocese within certain locally imposed and accepted limits. As folks have noted, issues of sexuality have been problematic for Anglicans in the past few decades. In the 1970s the United States, and shortly thereafter Canada, decided to allow the ordination of women without the support of any other Anglican provinces. The initial US decision was somewhat of a shock, and as I've mentioned the decision in Canada used some rules-lawyering and subterfuge to pass it through the synod that left a bad taste in the mouths of many, even some who supported the ordination of women, which is still having repercussions today as there is a huge emphasis being placed on the need for General Synod to have transparent and clear rules and processes for the debate on same-sex marriage in order to make it clear the same shenanigans wont be allowed. Broadening the scope, though, those decisions eventually led to splits into what is now broadly called the Continuing Movement. These are Anglicans who are "continuing" in the traditions of the Church. These churches largely exist in the Anglican West only because Anglicans in the global south haven't made any of these kinds of changes. Skip forward to the 2000s when the issue of homosexuality becomes big news. 2003 Gene Robinson, an openly gay man living with a partner, was consecrated as a bishop in TEC. For some traditionalists in the continuing movement this was a vindication of their view and warnings that the ordination of women was the thin edge of the wedge that would lead to the authority of the Bible being brought into question as secular values would more and more overtake the decision-making organs of TEC. TEC itself just said it was a victory for diversity and inclusion. The Anglican Communion itself responded by saying HOLD UP! Let's not be so hasty. 2M American Anglicans allow this (not that all members of TEC supported it) while 78M Anglicans outside wouldn't. We've got a problem here! The vast majority of provinces in the Anglican Communion are now in impaired communion with TEC. The ACC followed suit with things like the Diocese of New Westminster blessing same-sex marriages in 2006 in an effort to encourage the church to follow the secular government's legislative legalization of same-sex marriage. Again the Communion said hold up, let's stop that for now and put a moratorium on this so we can all take a breath and figure out the doctrines and theologies, etc. Canada and the US sorta said no, pretty much ignoring the Windsor Report which called for the moratorium. Over this period a lot of traditionalist Anglicans (including a few entire diocese in TEC) left TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. The ultimately formed a new province, the Anglican Church of North America in 2009. Between the period when they left and when they formed TEC, many of them put themselves under the authority of African and South American bishops. There remain to this day strong ties between the global south and the traditionalist Anglicans in North America. So going back to the Anglican Communion, as a result of the impaired communion and as a means of protesting the errors of the North American Churches, the primates of the global south have said they would no longer attend AC primatial gatherings if ACC/TEC were invited and attended. They also tried to get ACNA into the Anglican Communion, but there was a rule in place that only one province can be represented in the communion per state. Since ACC/TEC already represent Canada and the US, ACNA can't be a part of the AC. This has led to a lot of the global south boycotting AC meetings, to the point where Justin Welbey, the Archbishop of Canterbury since 2012, hasn't called a primates meeting. The global south initiated something called GAFCON back in 2008 (ACNA was actually born partly out of connections hammered out at the original GAFCON meeting) and has held many more since. More bishops and provinces were represented at GAFCON than in the last two primate's meetings in 2009 and 2011. A lot of speculation had been suggesting that because GAFCON represents the majority of Anglicans worldwide, it might ultimately replace the Anglican Communion as an instrument of unity between the majority of worldwide Anglican provinces. So, in response, Justin Welbey tried a compromise approach in which he's suggested that AC members will no longer need to entirely be in communion with one another, but if you're in communion with Canterbury that's enough and he's also extended an invitation to Archbishop Foley Beach, primate of ACNA, to attend their next meeting. The ACC and TEC are still invited, but GAFCON has responded pretty much saying they think that it's at least worth them coming and consider it a positive sign. So it looks like the Anglican Communion will continue to exist, though in what form no one can exactly say. Realistically it's more just changing the organization to better reflect its existing realities. I'm not 100% well and currently on some pretty powerful prescription meds, so I apologize if there are any factual errors or unclear jargon in that. I might try and clean this up a bit the next time I look at it.
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Nov 11, 2015 06:32
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