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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Anglican Church disintegrating says ABC
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Hazeldean
Apprentice
# 17706
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Posted
The following post appeared in the national post in Canada, but it is from the Telegraph. The national Post is a right-wing paper 9founded by Conrad Black) that seems to reprint a lot of articles from the Telegraph and conservative sources. They have a particular hate-on for so-called liberal churches and the Anglican Church is a favourite target. They seldom point out that the Church of England is not the Anglican Church of Canada, but their readers don't know any better and don't care. Any thoughts on what ++Justin has said and what he's up to?
http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/08/21/anglican-church-a-drunk-man-staggering-ever-closer-to-the-edge-of-a-cliff-archbishop- says/
Posts: 24 | From: Ottawa Canada | Registered: May 2013
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
Couldn't this have been placed in one of the existing "Anglicanism is falling apart" threads?
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Er, when was Anglicanism ever "together"? ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Hazeldean
Apprentice
# 17706
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Posted
This not about the general "woe is us" stuff, but a specific reference to a current event.
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Seems to be consistent with the National Post's general pattern. The world has been falling apart for the whole life of the NP, since the world is not conservative enough.
Come to that, Steven Harper isn't conservative enough.
But then, that statement also applies to many of the vocal Anglicans as well, which is where the grain of truth in the story comes in.
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It's Not That Simple
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Er, when was Anglicanism ever "together"?
Probably at the time of Elizabeth I? (sort of?)
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
Couldn't this have been placed in one of the existing "Anglicanism is falling apart" threads?
Probably needs it's own sub-forum at this stage.
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"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." - Athanasius of Alexandria
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Er, when was Anglicanism ever "together"?
Probably at the time of Elizabeth I? (sort of?)
The point of a sword can concentrate minds wonderfully.
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"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." - Athanasius of Alexandria
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Hazeldean
Apprentice
# 17706
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Posted
No one seems especially perturbed by what ++Justin has said. It's the "same old", but is he trying to put humpty-dumpty back together by painting a dire picture? He is more sympathetic to the conservatives, one would think, but is he making any ouvertures or tring to be proactive? The idea of a Church that is "together" appeals to many, but is any Church really together? Fundamentalists go where they get what they like and are always looking for the next big thing. Even for RCs, the togetherness is just on the surface, since their clergy and people are all over the map. Anglicans are just more honest.
Posts: 24 | From: Ottawa Canada | Registered: May 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
The binding factor in the Anglican Church are the elderly ladies serving weak coffee after the service. Just make sure that you don't lose those and you'll be fine.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Why should he have to? I mean, who would really want to try and step into such playground politics anyway; it would be casting pearls before swine. If we are on a course of self destruct, and have strayed so far from our understanding of what we are, then we actually deserve to die and there is something to be said for stepping back and allowing it to happen so that history might be our judge and point and say, 'see how these Christians hated one another, and look what happened.'
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Hazeldean
Apprentice
# 17706
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Posted
The basic issue in the Anglican Communion is the difficulty of sharing one theology, worldview, and social outlook in all parts of the world. Western democracies where the marriage of gay people is accepted have a different outlook, obviously, than second and third world nations where homosexuality is still a crime. Anglicanism has never had one single theology as Evanglicals and Anglo Catholics can attest. The problem of the Anglican Communion is the problem of the world. One size cannot fit all. It seemed to work in the past, but the present is different, thanks to things like the internet, fundamentalism, social upheaval, and much more. The RC Church seems to be more together, but appearnces do not always match reality, since their unity is imposed from above. Anglicans have never had an office with that kind of authority or clout and have never wanted it. It is our strength and our weakness.
Posts: 24 | From: Ottawa Canada | Registered: May 2013
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Er, when was Anglicanism ever "together"?
Actually, you have it right. I disagree with other parishioners let alone neighbouring churches, and we dislike Ontario and Toronto Anglicans just on principal. I think we're headed for massive selling off of church properties and a reboot, with the focus on something vaguely Anglican, with less critical thinking, worse music and better coffee.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hazeldean:
The basic issue in the Anglican Communion is the difficulty of sharing one theology, worldview, and social outlook in all parts of the world.
No it isn't. The Roman Catholic Church manages to do it (well, more or less). The problem with Anglicanism (or its glory, depending on one's point of view), is its difficulty sharing one theology, worldview, and social outlook even in the country of its origin, or even within a city. There's really no point in pretending that there's a single shared theology (other than 'mere Christianity') between All Saints, Margaret Street and its neighbouring parish of All Souls, Langham Place; still less between S. Magnus the Martyr and St Helen's Bishopsgate, which are likewise located by the same tube station. Yet all are Anglican, and even in the same diocese (London) and the same episcopal area (Two Cities). Along with them, one might add parishes of every extreme: from those that celebrate gay marriages to those that regard homosexual activities as a grave sin (with perhaps even a few who quietly suggest that same-sex attraction is a disease that can be cured); from those with an entirely female team of ministers to those who have sought alternative episcopal oversight to avoid the 'taint' of what they see to be invalid ordinations; from those that use only a liturgy that would have been familiar at the time of the Restoration to those who use only the most modish of contemporary liturgies or no set liturgy at all, with a significant smattering of those using the rites of a different Communion altogether; from those who espouse a Eucharistic theology identical to that of Counter-Reformation Rome to those whose view of the sacrament is so low that it would make Zwingli blush.
Whatever else they are, divisions within Anglicanism aren't new. Until now, we've more or less managed to live together. We'll probably manage in the future. That doesn't mean we won't complain about it. We're Anglicans, after all, bitching about our brothers and sisters in Christ is our 8th sacrament (or the 3rd, as the case may be).
[ 22. August 2013, 17:16: Message edited by: S. Bacchus ]
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
I think that the fact that the Church of England is established and part of the gov't of England makes it a special case vis-a-vis the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Now I'm NOT saying that all churches shouldn't be about serving all people (they should). Also I am a member of the US Episcopal Church, way across the water and thus not close up. But (going by what I read on SoF) the CofE seems, in effect, a government agency trying to serve the whole population in a special way other churches don't have to.
Take worship styles for example. Anglican churches tend to have a fairly wide range from low on the candle on up. But the ECUSA, and I believe, the Anglican Church of Canada, in general don't have the extreme range found in the C of E, from churches using the full Roman liturgy and praying for "Francis our Pope" to megachurch-style worship with business (or lounge) suit-wearing priests and praise bands and big screens.
[ 22. August 2013, 17:35: Message edited by: malik3000 ]
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
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Stephen
Shipmate
# 40
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The binding factor in the Anglican Church are the elderly ladies serving weak coffee after the service. Just make sure that you don't lose those and you'll be fine.
And never - ever - mess with the MU
or - as Mousethief would no doubt say - don't mess with the babushkas........
The old ladies actually seem self-renewing.....I can never work it out
But really if you want to look at fault-lines, forget Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, the various Dead Horse issues
Be a lot more worried if you mess with the hymns, change the times of the services, oh, and how much should we ask for coffee and biccies
And I'm not joking
[ 22. August 2013, 17:39: Message edited by: Stephen ]
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Best Wishes
Stephen
'Be still,then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth' Ps46 v10
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Hazeldean
Apprentice
# 17706
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Posted
Response to S Bacchus, who said "No it isn't. The Roman Catholic Church manages to do it (well, more or less)." Your post gives all the reasons why Anglicanism isn't like Roman Catholicism. The one reason Romans at least appear to be united is the Papacy. However, the whole point of Anglicansim (one might say its strength) is that it isn't centrally controlled. One may deplore the idea of differing theologies, nelief systems and liturgies in one church, but that is what Anglicanism has always been. It's why many like being Anglicans. We rejected the Papacy and have not replaced it. The Roman Church has many problems, even with this authority and then there is a "take it or leave it-our way or the highway" attitude in Rome. Many Roman Catholics have opted for the highway, even if they remain cultural Catholics. (Even Orthodoxy hasn't worked well with a centralised authority, and it is only their conservatism in liturgy and theology that seems to unite them. However, their divisions are deep when it comes to ethnic churches and jurisdictions.)
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
What you say was true of Anglicanism, but I'm not sure it's true anymore. There is a feeling that the anglican community world-wide should have some kind of check in place in terms of being answerable to the rest of the community, or being led by the Archbishop of Canterbury as a kind of pope. Others look to Lambeth as being a governing body for the entire anglican community world-wide.
Ideally we would learn to live in a situation where each province is trusted to not only understand what anglicanism is, but also to make its own governing decisions and response to its culture and context in faith. But there has to be a willingness to do this, and a recognition that some elements will do things others don't like. Even within provinces there needs to be a willingness to understand that it is a community of faith and how we make decisions of faith and practice that benefit that community. However, I sometimes wonder has it gone past the point of no return, in that the arguments have become so heated and the camps so entrenched that we no longer care what happens so long as we get our way - community and self autonomy be damned. The risk is that we destroy ourselves looking for points of unity and creating new ones (Anglican covenant for example) when unity was never our main focus before, destroying the good things that we have in favour of becoming monolithic for the sake of an imposed and false unity.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
I think that the fact that the Church of England is established and part of the gov't of England makes it a special case vis-a-vis the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Pedant alert: the C of E is not 'part of the government of England'. Bishops in the Lords - regrettable though their ex officio presence is, IMHO - are part of the legislature not the government (even if there were an English government which there isn't, yet.)
But we are a 'special case', not really because of establishment (though that's part of the historical reasons), but because we are perceived to be, and think of ourselves as, the default church for English people. Hence we have never much needed to be self-conscious about our 'Anglican identity.' Whereas Anglicans in most other countries have had to think about the reasons why they exist and what they stand for.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
Angloid, as I said, I live thousands of miles from the UK including England, and I am hardly an expert. I didn't mean part of "government" in the sense that the PM is head of gov't whereas the sovereign is head of state. I simply meant government in the broader sense that ultimately it is the state which governs the people living in the territorial confines. In the UK the head of state officially has the final approval of the top cleric in the established religious body (with the input of advice from her PM), and in one of the 2 houses of the top legislative body, certain clerics of the religious body get seats in that legislative body on the basis of a role in the state-establshed religious body.
Nothing of that is the case with the ECUSA, the ACC, et al. (for which I am am glad, personally speaking)
[ 23. August 2013, 17:48: Message edited by: malik3000 ]
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
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malik3000
Shipmate
# 11437
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Posted
I missed the edit window to add that I know the difference between the UK and England, and realise that any remarks about the established Church of England refer to England. (I'm not going to complicate things by talking about the Church of Scotland, which is outside the scope of this thread anyway.)
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God = love.
Otherwise, things are not just black or white.
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Merchant Trader
Shipmate
# 9007
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
I think that the fact that the Church of England is established and part of the gov't of England makes it a special case vis-a-vis the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Pedant alert: the C of E is not 'part of the government of England'. Bishops in the Lords - regrettable though their ex officio presence is, IMHO - are part of the legislature not the government (even if there were an English government which there isn't, yet.)
But we are a 'special case', not really because of establishment (though that's part of the historical reasons), but because we are perceived to be, and think of ourselves as, the default church for English people. Hence we have never much needed to be self-conscious about our 'Anglican identity.' Whereas Anglicans in most other countries have had to think about the reasons why they exist and what they stand for.
Pedant Alert^2
1) Government consists of Executive, Legistlature and Judiciary, so those Bishops in the Lords are part of the wider definition of government if not usually part of "The Government" . However, given that our Executive ("The Government") is selected from the Legistlature, both Lords and Commons, I presume they could be, if selected, and have ben historically.
2) Cannons of the Church of England have the status of law and in that sense The Cof E is part of Government.
3) I thought we still have Church Courts which judge cases governed canons e.g. cases concerning faculties & stuff and these are part of the of the English legal system.
I suspect there is more but church and state remain pretty emeshed and it would not be simple to unravel it all.
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... formerly of Muscovy, Lombardy & the Low Countries; travelling through diverse trading stations in the New and Olde Worlds
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
The Anglican family is as diverse , in many ways as is humankind. My lot, Anglican Church of Canada has it's moments but we are surviving. But let's remember the faith evolves . Stay static you die . But we will keep on growing , right ? blessings ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
quote:
We struggle with each other at a time when the Anglican Communion's great vocation as bridge builder is more needed than ever.
from Welby's sermon, linked above
In other words, the National Post got it exactly wrong. The church is not necessarily falling apart (although that has been possible since the time of the late lamented Edward VI),; no, it can be a focus for discussion and understanding if the members will let that happen. The church doesn't "fall apart"; the members may fall out or off.
And, on the leadership thing: Welby's attack on the payday lenders has started a significant movement. One thing at a time - or are you (whoever) still age 13?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Merchant Trader:
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
I think that the fact that the Church of England is established and part of the gov't of England makes it a special case vis-a-vis the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Pedant alert: the C of E is not 'part of the government of England'. Bishops in the Lords - regrettable though their ex officio presence is, IMHO - are part of the legislature not the government (even if there were an English government which there isn't, yet.)
.....
Pedant Alert^2
1) Government consists of Executive, Legistlature and Judiciary, so those Bishops in the Lords are part of the wider definition of government if not usually part of "The Government" . However, given that our Executive ("The Government") is selected from the Legistlature, both Lords and Commons, I presume they could be, if selected, and have ben historically.
2) Cannons of the Church of England have the status of law and in that sense The Cof E is part of Government.
3) I thought we still have Church Courts which judge cases governed canons e.g. cases concerning faculties & stuff and these are part of the of the English legal system.
I suspect there is more but church and state remain pretty emeshed and it would not be simple to unravel it all.
I bow to greater knowledge, and agree that none of this is desirable. However, my point is really that the self-image of the C of E does not depend on establishment but on the de facto reality of its being the default church in most of England (though that status is less secure in strongly Catholic areas like Merseyside)
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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