Following a Mass devoted to church unity, Rev. Aaron R. Bayles, the assistant pastor, reported that the majority of parishioners would be “on board” with the development.

He said he himself was exultant when he heard the news because he had always hoped for the unification of Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. The new provision for Anglicans may be “a step in that direction,” he commented.

For 17 years the parish has refused to allow the local Episcopal bishop to come for a pastoral visit or confirmation. It also stopped paying its annual financial assessment to the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The diocese sued to take over the Church of the Good Shepherd’s building in 2009. It is a replica of a 14th-century English country parish that was built in 1894. The property is estimated at $7 million in value.

Read it all.

If Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy, then Bedford is no Congress of St. Louis.

The 1977 gathering and its Affirmation were about sharply defining doctrine, with continuity both back to the origins of the Church of England, and setting a precedent for decades if not centuries to come. This week’s gathering was about fuzzing theological differences between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, while reassuring both parties that the ACNA is no TEC.

It’s possible that more truth, clarity and courage will be forthcoming, but right now I don’t have reason to be optimistic. If he wants to connect to those American Christians who believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, Metropolitan Jonah still has a few dozen Schism I bishops yet to meet. Perhaps it’s time for the Congress of St. Louis/Schism I crowd to convene their own media event. If the Metropolitan isn’t available, they could invite Cardinal Kasper.

Read it all.

We need a unified body both to heal the divisions among ourselves and to give the broader Anglican Communion a unified and coherent partner with which to be in relation­ship.

Forming the Anglican Church in North America is a significant step forward on both these fronts. It is an amazing God-given healing of that internal division and an opportunity for forming constructive relation­ships within the Communion.

Eleven fragments of “mainstream” Anglicanism in the United States and Canada were involved in the adop­tion of the provisional constitution: the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda), the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of An­glicans in North America (Nigeria), Forward in Faith North America, the Missionary Convocations of Kenya, Southern Cone (including the Bolivia and Recife networks), and Uganda, together with the Reformed Episcopal Church.

These fragments draw together some 700 congregations in North Am­erica, with an estimated 100,000 worshippers on average on any given Sunday. This constellation is thus numbered as larger than 13 of the provinces of the Anglican Com­munion (including Scotland and Wales), and compares to the 750,000 the Episcopal Church in the United States claims to draw every Sunday.

Please note: this was in last week’s print edition of the Church Times, which was available on the web for subscribers only. It is now available to all. Please read it attentively.

Forasmuch as the Reformed Episcopal Church has affirmed the teaching of God’s Word that abortion is the taking of an unborn human life, and inasmuch as we have recognized the duty of all faithful Christians to work to protect the unborn and restrain the sin of abortion on demand, we hereby move that the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church direct the clergy and laity of the Reformed Episcopal Church to make a political candidate’s position on the Sanctity of Human Life the highest priority in discerning for whom to vote regardless of political party represented or office being sought.

SanDiegoAnglicans has the goods.

A part of my daily e-mail traffic comes from people who have read my various pieces, in which I show the mess into which North American Anglicanism has got itself through (a) the initial infidelity of The Episcopal Church [for details of this see my Episcopal Innovations, 1960-2004, from www.anglicanmarketplace.com] and then (b) the indiscriminate creation of small groups bearing the name “Anglican” from 1977 through to 2008 [see further my Anglican Identity from the same site]. They ask simply: what are we to do? And some of them expect that there is a simple answer which applies in all the 48 contiguous states, not to mention Alaska and Hawaii.

It seems to me that the extra-mural Anglican situation outside TEC has got so complex””not least through the intervention of at least five overseas Anglican provinces in recent years””that it is not possible to offer any simple answer, except the one that avoids the problem and is simply: “Pack your bags, leave this Anglican house, go to another with a different name [Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox etc.] and forget about the Anglican mess as far as you are able, for to clean it up will take a generation.”

If people have patience to consider principles and not be caught up in “winds of change” and “instant solutions” and “imitating others,” then I put to them””in brief””something like the following (adapted of course to local and personal reality). I presume here that the starting point is a parish in TEC where there is a dissatisfied group of Episcopalians who wish to be faithful to Biblical religion….

Read it all.

“My predecessors met some thirty years ago in St. Louis in the hope of organizing a home for faithful Anglicanism in this country. That project split into the many fragments of the Continuing Churches, rendering us unable to stop or even slow the march to control of the Episcopal Church by revisionists. The revisionists make the secular fads of the moment their supreme authority, and Scripture a historical curiosity. As a bishop in one of the churches of the Continuum, I must confess that we have sinned and pray God not only to forgive us but also to redeem the work we have attempted so ineptly.”

–The Rt. Rev. Louis Chopin Cusachs, in response to Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi’s “What is Anglicanism?”, First Things 180 (February 2008): page 5.

Though it was founded a mere 12 months ago, the traditions and beliefs of Trinity Anglican Church of Port Charlotte are steeped in religious history.

Margo Lang, whose late husband served as rector at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, joined forces with Ed and Joy Robedee to found the new church on Jan. 14, 2007, after the membership of St. Paul’s had dwindled, and the church disbanded.

The retired Rt. Rev. Stanley Lazarczyk, bishop ordinary, agreed to lead the fledgling church, which meets at the Cultural Center of Charlotte County on Sundays and holy days.

Lazarczyk made it clear that Anglican Catholic Church is not to be confused with the Episcopal Church

“There’s a number of reasons,” he said. “Number one is the ordination of women. We believe it is against Holy Scripture. The Bible to us is the most important book. Everything that is contained in it is necessary for salvation and we don’t deviate from it. The second reason is the change of the 1928 prayer and the 1940 hymnal.”

Read it all.

Those who peruse the big Anglican blogs know that “Communion Conservatives” (those who advocate contending for the faith by staying in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion) and “Federal Conservatives” (those who are convinced one or both of those bodies are too far gone to the point they think it best orthodox at least prepare to leave) are rather close to each other’s throats at the moment.

To be honest, I have my opinion as to which side is most at blame, but that’s not my concern right now. This post may even seem a bit vague because I don’t want to engage in figure pointing. For my concern is that anger between the two sides is getting to and past the point that it will make it difficult for these two sides of orthodox Anglicans to work together in the future.

That distresses me. If it turns out the Federal Conservatives are right and the Communion Conservative eventually find staying in TEC and the like to be untenable, I want the Comm-Cons to feel they have a refuge in Common Cause and/or whatever church bodies the Fed-Cons form. Likewise, if a miracle happens and the Anglican Communion or even the Episcopal Church sufficiently reforms, I want Fed-Cons to feel they can return. I hope the current divisions between the two are temporary. And even if Comm-Cons and Fed-Cons remain on different tracks, I want them to be able still to work together on those things they can.

Read it all.

The Reformed Episcopal Diocese of the Southeast is about to consecrate a new bishop.

It recently elected the Very Rev. Alphonza Gadsden of St. Stephen, and his consecration is tentatively set for 2 p.m. Nov. 17 in Redeemer Reformed Episcopal Church in Pineville.

Invitations will go out as soon as a few remaining standing committees officially endorse the election, said the Rev. Canon J. Ronald Moock. The invitation list will include the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, he said.

The Reformed Episcopal Diocese was formed in the 1800s when the Episcopal Church would not ordain black clergy. The local Reformed Episcopal diocese and the local Episcopal diocese officially bridged the old racial divide with a joint Communion service in 2003, the same year the national Episcopal Church consented to the consecration of an openly gay bishop. Both diocese issued statements opposing the Episcopal Church’s action.

The Reformed Episcopal Church is aligned with the Common Cause Partnership, a network of Anglican churches that view the Episcopal Church as out of fellowship with the majority of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is a partner through the Anglican Communion Network.

Read it all from the front page of the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

The Orthodox Anglican Communion has churches in 12 nations and nearly one million members. By October, because of requests from 2,000 parishes in India to join the denomination, the church will boast 2 to 3 million members, said David Bessinger, the archdiocese director of communications.

Christ Anglican Church is the denomination’s only congregation in Davidson County. The denomination’s headquarters has been here since 2004 and is on East Second Avenue.

On his trip to Africa, McLaughlin arrived in Accru, Ghana, after a 10-hour flight and then headed to Secondi via motorcade. When he arrived, more than 2,000 people were there to greet him, many wearing bright, yellow T-shirts with his photo on the front.

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The Rev. John H. Poole of St. Philip’s says, though, he’s not focusing on potential gain that could result from a schism in the Episcopal Church. His emphasis is on evangelization and attracting more people, especially young families, who are unchurched or are interested in a conservative, Bible-based, liturgical community, Poole said.

“I feel there are people searching for the truth,” he said. “We certainly are welcoming of any Episcopalian that might want to come looking for a lifeboat….

Poole, who became a priest a year ago, had been a deacon in the Episcopal Church for a quarter of a century before leaving the denomination.

“I was looking for a more stable, historical faith,” he said.

The former ironworker from upstate New York said he found what he was looking for when he met Bishop Walter H. Grundorf – also a former Episcopalian – of the Anglican Province of America.

“It renewed my faith,” he said of the religious community with congregations scattered throughout the country.

Read it all.