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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Anglo-Methodist movement
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Tangent alert
Does anybody know if the Wesleyan church is on the low end or the high end? I'd always assumed they were on the low end. Never been to one.
As far as I know, they tend toward happy-clappy.
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
Posts: 1621 | From: Warrior Mountains | Registered: Oct 2007
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
At present I recall Wesleyans are higher than Primitives but I have forgotten the third strain and that might be higher or lower or in the middle.
Jengie
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
At present I recall Wesleyans are higher than Primitives but I have forgotten the third strain and that might be higher or lower or in the middle.
Jengie
British Wesleyanism was the main Methodist body. There were plenty of breakaway churches, but they were usually looking to get further away from Anglicanism, not closer to it. So the Wesleyan Connexion would have been the highest of all the Methodist churches.
According to Wiki, the Methodist union of 1932 united the Wesleyans with the Primitive Methodists and the United Methodists. (The latter were the result of a previous union of certain other Methodist groups). Some historians claim that by this point, the Prims were already rather less brash than they had been earlier because their social composition was changing. But it's also implied that union tended to favour the higher style prefered by the Wesleyans. This must be because, in a village or area with both a Wesleyan and Prim church, it was usually the Prims who lost their building. They would have had to join with the Wesleyans, and I suppose this meant modifying their churchmanship.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Matariki
Shipmate
# 14380
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Posted
JJ, if memory serves me right in the UK the third stream was the New Connexion, they formed the Methodist Church of Great Britain with the Wesleyans and the Primitives. I could not really place them on the high low Methodist spectrum but I think their prinary difference with Wesleyans was that the New Connexion allowed greter lay leadership. of the denomination. Another offshoot was the Bible Christians, who were strong in the West Country and were very much in the Primitive tradition.
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Posts: 298 | From: Just across the Shire from Hobbiton | Registered: Dec 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Gosh, visting St Ives in Cornwall, I saw chapels for both the Bible Christians (noticeboard: Christ paid the penalty for our sins) and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, who had had a serious charismatic makeover: (noticeboard: Community Church where everyone is someone and Jesus is Lord.)
I had thought both those bodies were extinct.
I felt more sympathy for the Countess' Connexion.
PS I'd have thought the big issues with all these bodies in the C19 wasn't theology or liturgy but class, and as an Anglican I am ashamed that the Church of England was clearly alien to the vast amount of the articulate working class.
[ 14. April 2012, 20:30: Message edited by: venbede ]
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
The congregation I had contact with was formerly United Methodist and they were when I attended snake belly low.
I still remember me and one of their members giggling through out a sermon on the sanctity of the communion table. The thing was every time the preacher mentioned the communion table he actually pointed to the pool table which was covered to disguise what it was in a religious drape.
The communion table itself was a small scruffy side table stored at one side of the room. I am not making this up.
Jengie
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Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Venbede, you may or may not be aware that the presence of a plaque or inscription saying 'Primitive Methodist Chapel' or 'Bible Christians' or 'Methodist New Connexion' does not imply that these bodies are extant in the UK - it simply means that the buildings were erected by these groups when they were first commissioned.
I'm surprised at Padre Joshua's assertion that Wesleyans are 'happy-clappy'. That might be the case elsewhere but it generally isn't in the UK.
SvitlanaV2 has it about right, I think. The Wesleyan's were the main Methodist body here in the UK and gradually reabsorbed most, but not all, of the various splinter groups. I wouldn't describe them as 'high' but they would have been more 'Anglican' in feel than the Bible Christians and the Prims.
As far as I know, there weren't any substantial differences between the Wesleyans and the New Connexion other than the way they organised themselves.
The whole Methodist thing became very Protestant in the 19th century and generally took a very dim view of anything that looked too 'catholic'. The influential Brunswick Chapel in Leeds (now demolished) had a grievous split in the 1840s over the introduction of an organ - which many saw as a 'Papist' innovation.
I agree with SvitlanaV2 about the liturgical nature of Methodist services. You can be liturgical without being 'high'.
To confuse the issue, I would suggest to SvitlanaV2 that there is also a difference between 'high' and 'Anglo-Catholic' ... the terms aren't coterminous.
At one time there were plenty of 'high and dry' Anglicans of a rather Calvinistic bent who were 'High Church' without being ritualists.
There are grades of 'catholicism' within the 'higher' end of the spectrum in Anglicanism. There are two Anglican parishes in our town. One is very , very low indeed - lower, perhaps, than many Methodists - and the other is what the vicar there calls 'catholic-lite' ie. liberal-catholic in theology and with an informally 'catholic' feel - ie. hempen hassocky cassocks and bright, white linen and so on - incense generally, bells and the elevation of the Host, but nothing at all 'superstitious' about any of these actions.
Get to a service, SvitlanaV2. You might enjoy it.
I'm very naughty and often find myself chuckling at your reactions to matters Anglican. I suspect if you attended Anglican services more often you'd find them not a million-miles apart from what you're used to for the most part.
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm surprised at Padre Joshua's assertion that Wesleyans are 'happy-clappy'. That might be the case elsewhere but it generally isn't in the UK.
I'm sorry; I misunderstood. I assumed we were talking about the Wesleyan Church, which one mainly finds in the American midwest. There are a few congregations here in my neck of the woods, and as I understand it, they are very happy-clappy. It was originally a split from the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here is the Wikipedia article about it.
The 1939 merger in the US that Svitlana referenced was between the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and most of Methodist Protestant Church, thereby forming The Methodist Church. I believe the MPS was the primitive branch.
In 1968, The Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren to form The United Methodist Church.
And that's more than you ever wanted to know about American Methodism. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
Posts: 1621 | From: Warrior Mountains | Registered: Oct 2007
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Circuit Rider
Ship's Itinerant
# 13088
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... I'm surprised at Padre Joshua's assertion that Wesleyans are 'happy-clappy'. That might be the case elsewhere but it generally isn't in the UK. ...
Padre Joshua is more than likely thinking of the North American denomination. He also has in mind a particular congregation with which he is familiar that does tend to the "happy-clappy" side of things. Formerly known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, they tend to be conservative (almost fundamentalist-holiness) and lower down the candle.
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Posts: 715 | From: Somewhere in the Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007
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Circuit Rider
Ship's Itinerant
# 13088
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Posted
quote:
Just posted by Padre Joshua:
I'm sorry; I misunderstood. I assumed we were talking about the Wesleyan Church, which one mainly finds in the American midwest. There are a few congregations here in my neck of the woods, and as I understand it, they are very happy-clappy.
See? Cross-posted with PJ at the same time. How 'bout that?
[ 14. April 2012, 21:52: Message edited by: Circuit Rider ]
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I felt my heart strangely warmed ... and realised I had spilt hot coffee all over myself.
Posts: 715 | From: Somewhere in the Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Circuit Rider:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... I'm surprised at Padre Joshua's assertion that Wesleyans are 'happy-clappy'. That might be the case elsewhere but it generally isn't in the UK. ...
Padre Joshua is more than likely thinking of the North American denomination. He also has in mind a particular congregation with which he is familiar that does tend to the "happy-clappy" side of things. Formerly known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, they tend to be conservative (almost fundamentalist-holiness) and lower down the candle.
I was talking about that Wesleyan Church.
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-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
In Canada, if you want real Methodist Episcopalians, you pretty much are left with black congregations, either of the British Methodist Episcopal Church, or the African Methodist Episcopal parent body in the US from which it sprang (Canadian ministers before the Civil War were wary about crossing the border for conferences when they could be apprehended). The BME church in Toronto is right across the street from an Anglican church/retirement home, making morning Communion and evening chapel a breeze!
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Padre Joshua:
The 1939 merger in the US that Svitlana referenced was between the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and most of Methodist Protestant Church, thereby forming The Methodist Church. I believe the MPS was the primitive branch.
Sorry if I confused you, but I was referring to the merger in 1932 in the UK rather than the one in 1939 in the USA.
I don't know as much as I should about American Methodism. My main interest in it derives from the fact that one of the first Methodist bishops and the 'pioneer bishop of American Methodism', Francis Asbury, grew up not so very far away from where I live. In fact, I've visited his house! I wonder what he thought about liturgies? The fact that he wished to set up an episcopate for the American Methodists suggests that he was, perhaps, quite high himself. (Do you realise that British Methodism never took to the idea of having bishops?) But I haven't read his bio yet, so I can't say more about that.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To confuse the issue, I would suggest to SvitlanaV2 that there is also a difference between 'high' and 'Anglo-Catholic' ... the terms aren't coterminous.
[...]
I suspect if you attended Anglican services more often you'd find them not a million-miles apart from what you're used to for the most part.
I understand that. To judge from what venbede has said, even a really high Methodist church like Wesley's Chapel doesn't compare to a high Anglican church, though. So there's not much similarity at that level. From a Methodist point of view, a really High Anglican church and an Anglo-Catholic church are probably equally exotic! And since Anglicanism is so broad, I can well imagine that some Anglican churches are lower than some Methodist ones.
It's probably at 'middle of the road' level that Anglican churches and 'traditional' Methodist churches meet.
quote:
Get to a service, SvitlanaV2. You might enjoy it.
The one I know best describes itself as 'liberal Catholic'. (Yes, I do realise that doesn't mean Anglo-Catholic!) Friendly people, and I know the lady vicar. Not hugely different from the Methodist churches I know. The differences are subtle, but perhaps as a former church steward I notice them more.
quote:
I'm very naughty and often find myself chuckling at your reactions to matters Anglican.
Thanks for the hint.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Tangent alert
Does anybody know if the Wesleyan church is on the low end or the high end? I'd always assumed they were on the low end. Never been to one.
In England, the Wesleyan Methodists were the 'High Church' end of things. Services modelled after MP and EP in the BCP, black gown, bands and tippet; monthly Communion both morning and evening - a little more frequently in big congregations. Whether than holds elsewhere I do not know.
PD
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Circuit Rider:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... I'm surprised at Padre Joshua's assertion that Wesleyans are 'happy-clappy'. That might be the case elsewhere but it generally isn't in the UK. ...
Padre Joshua is more than likely thinking of the North American denomination. He also has in mind a particular congregation with which he is familiar that does tend to the "happy-clappy" side of things. Formerly known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, they tend to be conservative (almost fundamentalist-holiness) and lower down the candle.
I had to do a double-take when I saw that they called themselves the Wesleyan Church, and my eyes jumped out of my head when I saw they formerly called themselves the Wesleyan Methodist Church.
In Canada, the (original) Wesleyan Methodist Church was the main, British-inspired stream of Methodists of the five streams. Many, many churches in Ontario, including my current one, are Wesleyan Methodist in origin. A neighbouring church has "Wesleyan Methodist 1864" carved into its steeple. The other four streams were the Methodist Episcopalians, the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christians and the Free Methodists. The Wesleyan Methodists, ME's, Bible Christians and the Prims merged in 1885 to form the Methodist Church of Canada which itself merged into the United Church of Canada in 1925.
The Methodist Church of Canada did not have bishops.
So the United Church of Canada are the original Wesleyan Methodists and the Wesleyan Church are (American) newcomers. They are using the name but are not the same thing.
Speaking of the BME Church, there is one on Highway 11 south of Orillia.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
IIRC, the Methodist Church in Britain has 'Superintendents' which conveys the very much same idea as 'bishop' from the practical end of things.
PD
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
The UMC has superintendents but they are more like rural deans than anything.
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-Og: King of Bashan
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
IIRC, the Methodist Church in Britain has 'Superintendents' which conveys the very much same idea as 'bishop' from the practical end of things.
PD
With the ever enlarging circuits maybe they would be. We tend to compare our Districts to the Dioceses so making the Chair of district the nearest to a bishop role in theory.
However when comparing our church structures in college it became clear that whilst Methodists and CoE may look like having shapes that are equivalent the place of authority is different in each. Eg the bishop and the chair may have a conversation about a project but have different abilities in terms of being able to personally make it happen.
As for the Wesleyan name confusion I offer another variation. In the Welsh language communities Wesley left the methodist style revival to people like Howell Harris who like his friend Whitfield were Calvinistic. This led to the birth of Calvinistic methodists - now the Welsh Presbyterian church. However having claimed the Methodist label early when a arminian methodism began in Welsh it was called Wesleyan to distinguish them.
Though in reality the Welsh speaking Methodist Chapels are these days more non-conformist than anything else and more resistant than other branches of UK Methodism to printed litugy, candles etc (but don't change their usual order of events in the service! And don't say Amen until you are very definitely finished what you are saying - it is cue for them to begin the Lord's Prayer and then the stewerd will automatically bob up for notices and offering.)
Even high Methodists in the UK are a long way down the candle from High Anglican traditions - when I first began training alongside moderately high anglicans I needed translation facilities and was dealing with major culture shock in the college chapel.
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Posts: 1305 | From: west midlands | Registered: Mar 2010
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Circuit Rider
Ship's Itinerant
# 13088
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Posted
I have enjoyed watching this tread, appreciated the thoughts and the humor, as well as insights into the many ways we have splintered Methodism into our own unique variations along the way.
I am also noticing the tangents and the lean more toward polity than worship and want to observe, before we get locked or booted to Purg, that our thoughts follow this path ...
United Methodism is a direct offshoot of British Anglicanism, directly instituted by John Wesley himself only when the Bishop of London refused to ordain elders for the work in America.
Wesley provided a basic liturgy, The Sunday Service, a toned down version of the Book of Commmon Prayer. This indicates he intended American Methodism to have the liturgical resemblance of Anglicanism even if its polity was different.
Beginning with American frontier revivalism we disrespected Wesley's wishes, threw away The Sunday Service, and went our own merry way. Now we are almost totally ignorant of our liturgical heritage and happy being like those around us. That means in the South most Methodist churches are actually Baptist churches with colored cloth on the pulpit. In other regions of the country we are Catholic, or Lutheran, or something else. Interspersed among us are those who want to be like Hillsongs or Saddleback or the latest megawonderchurch. We have a decent Book of Worship which we largely ignore as we pretend to be something other than who we are. We have "United" in our name but liturgically we are anything but.
OSG may never get off the ground. But the idea is to encourage, in our neck of the woods, looking again at our rich liturgical heritage, explain why we do certain things, and taking on a more Anglican flavor (not wannabes or look-alikes) in our liturgical expression.
Thanks one and all for your input.
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I felt my heart strangely warmed ... and realised I had spilt hot coffee all over myself.
Posts: 715 | From: Somewhere in the Heart of Dixie | Registered: Oct 2007
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Avila:
As for the Wesleyan name confusion I offer another variation. In the Welsh language communities Wesley left the methodist style revival to people like Howell Harris who like his friend Whitfield were Calvinistic. This led to the birth of Calvinistic methodists - now the Welsh Presbyterian church. However having claimed the Methodist label early when a arminian methodism began in Welsh it was called Wesleyan to distinguish them.
Though in reality the Welsh speaking Methodist Chapels are these days more non-conformist than anything else and more resistant than other branches of UK Methodism to printed liturgy, candles etc (but don't change their usual order of events in the service! And don't say Amen until you are very definitely finished what you are saying - it is cue for them to begin the Lord's Prayer and then the stewerd will automatically bob up for notices and offering.)
Another church that is o the wooly edge of British Methodism is the Free Church of England, which sarted out as an offshoot of the Countess of Huntington's Connexion. This Connexion was basically the English version of Calvinistic Methodism and owed it start to George Whitefield and William Heweis, as well as the Countess. As the Connexion started to drift into a more normal non-conformist worship pattern and congregational polity, then the Free Church of England evolved as the mirror image of these movements becoming more firmly liturgical and episcopal in its habits.
The FCE started out as a liturgically minded sister church to the Connexion, and as the latter embraced an increasingly congregational polity, the FCE incresingly went its own way and elected a superintendent, referred to as the bishop after 1863, and drifted away from the Countess' Connexion eventually breaking with it somewhere around 1876.
The original FCE had a less clearly "Anglican" identity than the English branch of the Reformed Episcopal Church, or the Reformed Church of England that strang from it. That said, it was still a Prayer Book Church, but the Bishop was beholden to the annual conferences. I guess you could say that the denomination's structure was about halfway between that of Methodism and that of the Church of England.
One odd fact is that Benjamin Price, the first FCE bishop had been chairman of the Conference in the Free C's more Methodist days. He was a Welsh speaking Calvinistic Methodist, but had accepted a Connexion chapel in England that was on the liturgical end of things and eventually ended up in the FCE.
When the FCE and the REC merged in England it generally adopted REC practice in the way the Church was run. As a result the denomination tended to play up its Anglo-Catholic bashing origins and American ties and quietly 'forget' about the Connexion until John Fenwick wrote his new History of the FCE in the late 1990s. In some respects, the FCE-REC merger strengthened the position of the bishops somewhat, but it still retained an annual conference with teeth. The BCP adopted at the merger was the FCE which owed is origins to Lord Ebury's proposals for a revision to the 1662 made c.1870 when the Tories were trying to put down Popery in the C of E.
PD
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Ecclesiastical Flip-flop
Shipmate
# 10745
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Posted
I have seen just a few of Free Church of England Churches on my travels and went on one occasion to one such church many years ago.
From my knowledge of this very small denomination, it is in "flavour" conservative evangelical with communion celebrated at the north end.
It was founded in opposition to he "high church" tendencies of the then Bishop of Exeter a couple of centuries ago, because they rejected the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration and of the nature of the ordained ministry, believing that a minister is not a priest in any other sense than the priesthood of believers.
[ 15. April 2012, 15:00: Message edited by: Ecclesiastical Flip-flop ]
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Joyeuses Pâques! Frohe Ostern! Buona Pasqua! ¡Felices Pascuas! Happy Easter!
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Ecclesiastical Flip-flop
Shipmate
# 10745
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Posted
Sorry to double-post, but it should read above, Priesthood of all believers.
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Posts: 1946 | From: Surrey UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop:
I have seen just a few of Free Church of England Churches on my travels and went on one occasion to one such church many years ago.
From my knowledge of this very small denomination, it is in "flavour" conservative evangelical with communion celebrated at the north end.
It was founded in opposition to he "high church" tendencies of the then Bishop of Exeter a couple of centuries ago, because they rejected the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration and of the nature of the ordained ministry, believing that a minister is not a priest in any other sense than the priesthood of believers.
That's very much the Bishop Vaughan version of the Free C of E's history. He chose to emphasize the denomination's second wave in the form of churches that came about as a protest again the parish church going Anglo-Catholic. I believe he felt that it was more respectable to be anti-Tractarian than an offshoot of Methodism. He chose to elevate James Shore incident - when he was not relicensed by "Old Harry" and the subsequent reregistering of Bridgetown Chapel as a Dissenting Meeting House - into being *the* moment when the Free Church of England came into being. In fact the whole of his 1927 history seems to go out of its way to hide the "Methodist" side of the FCE's origins, mainly due to the fact that Vaughan was from the REC side of the united church.
There were actually two convergent streams behind the founding of the FEC.
The older is that associated with the Countess of Huntington's Connexion, and the group of ministers within that denomination that wanted to remain with the original vision of a Free, Calvinist, Prayer Book, and Evangelical body. This had been Thomas Heweis' vision for the Connection which he had inherited from George Whitefield and the Countess. However, by the 1830s and 40s, it was being replaced with a more conventionally non-conformist ideal.
The other stream is the "James Shore" track - ani-Tractarianism. After the Bridgetown Chapel incident, a few congregations were formed as 'free chapels' using the BCP liturgy under solidly Evangelical ministers. One was in Barnstaple, another in Tottington, Lancs. These were the foundation of the second wave that strengthen the hand of those who wanted a free, Episcopal Church in the UK. Later examples of this anti-tractarian tendancy are the foundation of both Christchurch, Tue Brook, and Christchurch, Teddington both of which came into being alongside Anglo-Catholic parish churches.
The FCE/REC also made a stab at serving the needs of Irish evangelicals in Scotland and had two, mainly Irish, parishes in Glasgow prior to WW2. These were both bombed out.
Fenwick's New History of the FCE published in 2005 tends to emphasize the C of H Connexion roots of the FCE, the old Vaughan history the Bridgetown incident and the anti-Tractarian side of the FCE. I think in order to have a balanced view one needs to read both.
Yours,
PD
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Ecclesiastical Flip-flop
Shipmate
# 10745
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Posted
I appreciate PD's further information about the FCE, which I have encouraged from him.
It was at St. Jude's Balham that I attended a Sunday Evening service once, which was informal and not BCP rooted. I have seen their Church in Morecombe, Lancs, where the Minister there at the time, appeared to be also the Diocesan Bishop of the Northern Diocese in England. There is the Southern Diocese as well, making just two English dioceses.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
EFF, IIRC that is/was Dr Gretason's parish, so you were rather out of luck in not getting a BCP service. The situation when I was in the FCE was that you had to use the BCP for the main morning service, and you had only limited discretion with regard to other services. Most churches kept pretty scrupulously to that, even Christchurch, Exmouth, which was a bit of an oddball kept its 11am service "BCP and robes" even though they did other things at 9.30am and 6.30pm. In the overall scheme of things to do BCP in the morning and something else in the evening is a throw back to early Methodism so perhaps is not alien to the genius of the FCE as Thoresby and +Price would have understood it.
The more strictly BCP side was the RECUK/RCE of the united denominations. That was also the side of the movement that had a few closet 'Protestant High Churchmen' in it along with some old-fashioned High Church Evangelicals.
I think Bishop Vaughan must have been at least a High Church Evangelical, as in the denomination Handbook produced around 1928 it comes out that he had a high view of the historic episcopate and the sacraments. For example, he pointed out that it was not against the traditions of the FCE-REC to have a daily Communion, and that a very great blessing would accrue to any congregation so placed as to be able to do so. I take it from that remark that he had a high view of the sacraments. I am trying to think what an FCE daily Communion, if it ever happened, would look like, but it probably have been MP and "Stay Behind."
I have a lot of respect for the old Evangelicalism that does not neglect the sacraments and the Prayer Book. A lot of Bishop Vaughan's comments were lapped up by me as a 27/28 year old who was attracted by a strong sacramentalism but put off by Anglo-Catholic. There was a downside to Vaughan but that never showed in his writing, nor in his leadership of the church up until about 1950 when his years were beginning to catch up with him. When I was briefly in the FCE some of the senior clergy had been ordained when Frank Vaughan was Primus and remembered him quite clearly. However, by that time he was very ancient - he died in office at 93 in 1963!
PD
[ 16. April 2012, 16:43: Message edited by: PD ]
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Another Methodist denomination but I can't recall their previous name although I did know it once. Given their training college it looks as if there were once three Methodist training colleges in South Manchester!
Jengie
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Ecclesiastical Flip-flop
Shipmate
# 10745
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Posted
Thanks PD for your further interesting information about the FCE. I no longer frequent Balham, nor do I go anywhere where a FCE church is situated.
I have googled FCE and yes, Dr. Gretson is still at St. Jude's Balham. No Sunday evening service is indicated at St. Jude's now and it was something like 20 years ago that I had my one-off visit.
I have also looked up Emmanuel Morecambe and I see that the Rt. Revd. John McLean is still the Minister there and apart from once a bishop always a bishop he has been replaced by Rt. Revd. John Fenwick as the Northern Diocesan Bishop, who also has a churh of his own as the minister.
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Joyeuses Pâques! Frohe Ostern! Buona Pasqua! ¡Felices Pascuas! Happy Easter!
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop:
Thanks PD for your further interesting information about the FCE. I no longer frequent Balham, nor do I go anywhere where a FCE church is situated.
I have googled FCE and yes, Dr. Gretson is still at St. Jude's Balham. No Sunday evening service is indicated at St. Jude's now and it was something like 20 years ago that I had my one-off visit.
I have also looked up Emmanuel Morecambe and I see that the Rt. Revd. John McLean is still the Minister there and apart from once a bishop always a bishop he has been replaced by Rt. Revd. John Fenwick as the Northern Diocesan Bishop, who also has a churh of his own as the minister.
I hope that Morecambe is not going to "coffin" with Bishop MacLean - he must be in his mid-80s by now. That happened to rather too many FCE parishes in the 1960s, which is when the denominaton experience major shrinkage.
Bishop Fenwick came into the FCE when I was hanging around in those circles in the mid-1990s. By now he should have gone native, but when I knew him he still smelled a little too "C of E" to be acceptable to the more isolationist side of the FCE. It did not help that he was on the C of E side when the FCE - C of E negotiations were going on in the early-1990s. I had a better impression of him, though, than Dominic Stockwood, who, like a lot of converts, seemed determined to piss on everything he formerly believed.
The unfortunate dispute between the FCE and the FCE-EC was the result of a conflict between some of the more uncompromising characters in the denomination holding office at the same time. One of my favour expression "they could put two stones to fighting" got a lot of use at that time. I hate that sort of ecclesiastical internecine conflict, especially when I have friends on both sides. The net result for me was that I had to get out of the FCE as the stress was destroying my ability to function as a minister. I have long since stopped being surprised b clergymen who play politics, but I have never been able to accept it as being a normal party of the church doing business.
PD
[ 17. April 2012, 19:37: Message edited by: PD ]
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
I had a better impression of him, though, than Dominic Stockwood, who, like a lot of converts, seemed determined to piss on everything he formerly believed.
No relation to the great and mighty (and late) +Mervyn, surely?
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
Interesting although the tangent on the FCE and other related groups is, I think it is beginning to seriously detract from the original purpose of this thread viz-a-viz the planned Anglo-Methodist Order.
As there is already a thread on the FCE in Purgatory, I would suggest that general discussion be moved there, or a new thread started in Eccles is anyone wishes to focus on their worship practice.
Many thanks for your co-operation as ever!
dj_ordinaire, Eccles host
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Flinging wide the gates...
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
This thread intersects with the Sober Preacher's Grandkid's Baptism thread.
It was an Anglo-Methodist event as well as a Scoto-Catholic event. And a very nice event it was too!
*sips tea and munches on a square*
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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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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
This thread intersects with the Sober Preacher's Grandkid's Baptism thread.
It was an Anglo-Methodist event as well as a Scoto-Catholic event. And a very nice event it was too!
*sips tea and munches on a square*
I would have thought the two would be mutually exclusive.
I'm assuming there were copious libations of both sherry and GIN...
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Sherry, GIN, at a Methodist service or celebration thereof? Heaven forfend such backsliding!
Besides we are a Sober Preacher family!
Besides, in Canada Anglo-Methodists and Scoto-Catholics are very often the very same people.
[ 25. April 2012, 02:05: Message edited by: Sober Preacher's Kid ]
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
I thought this was kind of interesting. I didn't learn anything new here, but it was great to post on Facebook. What captured my attention was the bibliography at the end.
Enjoy.
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Although I admire SPK's enthusiasm and give due respect to the history of the UCC, ISTM that the situation south of the border is culturally different, in that the UMC is more or less the generic mainline protestant church in the USA in much of this country, but has roots much more organically close to the CofE in the US and the subsequent Episcopal Church in the USA. Down here, Presbyterianism seems to have followed a somewhat different course. This doesn't mean that we all won't meet up together pretty soon, as has already been the case with TEC and the ELCA. It's easier with the UMC, which already has an episcopal polity, although not one that is recognised as possessing unbroken, historic episcopal succession. The solution to this will be the same as the solution worked out between the ELCA and TEC. However, in the case of the PCUSA and likewise the UCC (United Church of Christ, i.e. the Congregationalists and Evangelical Reformed merger), there will need to be some sort of recognition, I would think, of a different form of ministry of oversight that is reconciled to the historic episcopate in some fashion. I'm being purposely vague here because I don't know what the solutions to that would be, although I'm sure they are being worked on.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
I was trying to leave that alone. Things did develop differently up here. The last member who remembered my congregation as a Methodist place died this year. She was 9 in 1925. Pre-union has passed out of living memory.
Seeing as the Church of England signed a covenant with the Methodist Church of Great Britain (bishopless) this can be worked out. Perhaps it will result in ordination of Ministers as bishops in recognition of Reformed Minister's ordination role.
The authority for ordination in the UCCan is conducted at Conference level but individual ministers lay on hands.
I am hoping that that ELCIC, the ACC and the UCCan can develop a communion agreement. The major issue is everyone's favourite Dead Horse. We took that Horse to the Glue Factory in 1988.
That and the others are afraid that we will assimilate them and add their theological and liturgical distinctiveness to that of our own.
We tried to merge with the Anglicans in the 1970's but it didn't work and it burned everyone out for a generation.
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