Laypeople who see church as nothing more than a local congregation, which maintains a building, provides Sunday services and rites of passage, and functions as a venue for community activities are not short-sighted. They are right. The institutional church has nothing else of interest to offer its members or anyone else that isn’t provided by secular organisations.
Even after exploring the Anglican communion’s website I fail to see what bad consequences would ensue if it fractured into two or 200 pieces.
I’m not sure what a schism in the Anglican communion will mean for me as an Episcopalian. Will I still be officially entitled to receive communion in the CofE or Anglican churches elsewhere? It hardly matters since Anglican churches don’t issue communion tickets or check credentials, and I don’t see any other way that the schism could affect me.
All I can say is this is a very “dead Church” perspective of the situation, but a very prevalent one. I actually agree with the sentiment that in such a “Church” there is nothing that wider secular society cannot provide. I am glad I am not attending such a church. “Christendom” is far from over. “Highly educated” people (meaning urban, college graduated, white and of European descent) cant see that the globe extends far beyond Europe and N. America to African, Latin and Asian people who are letting Christ work through them for God’s glory. A very dark and cynical perspective.
Right, wrong, or indifferent, the post accurately describes the outlook of a significant proportion of persons in the pews. They have been dragged along in recent disputes within the church and have often ended up on one side or another more because of which faction retains control of the property at which they are accustomed to worship than because of profound theological conviction. This is one of the reasons (I acknowledge that there are others) that property control has become so important for departing elements – it drags along backsides in the pews.
What most laypeople seem to not understand, in my experience, is the role in clergy recruitment and development, as well as professional financial security and retirement consideration for clergy, that is played by whatever larger church institution to which their congregation belongs. Seminaries and their faculty matter in producing whatever “brand” of Christian teaching and practice that individual congregations hope for. So do denominational clergy compensation and pension plan requirements. In this regard, the new American Anglicans will surely find dealing with the laity’s expectations about clergy no less difficult than TEC and other denominational groups.
Pretty poor understand of the Creed: “I believe in the holy catholic Church”.
American response first, Christian response 2nd. Individualism/utilitarianism first, integrity/community second.
….add “ing” after understand…sorry at work.
This article demonstrates that the controversy is one that happens mainly in cyberspace, and is essentially manufactured by the fact that our experiences have changed, as time and space have been compressed by technology and capital.
This is the quote that struck me:
[blockquote] Members of the Episcopal church are highly educated and well-informed. There is no reason why they should look to the church for moral guidance. [/blockquote]
Arrogance and ignorance makes for an ugly combination. The main reason that the Episcopal denomination was led astray and is now dying is pride as exhibited by this poor woman. Growing up, I can’t tell you the number of times I heard evangelicals dismissed as “Bible thumpers” and that “God want to take away our sins not our minds.” With absolute abysmal Biblical illiteracy, we were swayed by silly “shellfish” arguments.
When I left my former parish in San Jose, California, and came to St Alban’s Church in Los Banos in 2003, I was jokingly asked by the rector if I was going to be “one of those Bible-thumpers,” and I told him that I have always been one of “them,” and he just didn’t know it. He didn’t know what to say. I told him “We’re outta here!”
Prof. Baber reminds me of a parishioner I once knew. He was educated, a Ph.D. like HE Baber, and totally contemptuous of doctrine, creedal claims, and mission. In the two years I knew him, he remained a mystery to me. I concluded that there was some aesthetic experience about Anglican liturgy and music that appealed to him, and while he took the sacrament each Sunday, I remained unconvinced that he was a Christian as I understood it. I think that there are a lot of this type in mainstream Anglican churches. Perhaps that’s the reason why, when I stumbled on a network church in Ottawa this June, I felt to alive and uplifted to be in the presence of people to whom the risen Lord was real and who cared about a church wider than their own aesthetic and philosophical prejudices.
This thread’s probably dead by now but I do think a response is in order in any case.
I don’t know where Mad Padre got the idea that I’m contemptuous of creedal claims or mission. As it happens I believe the articles of the Creed–with the exception of the Filioque Claus which has been optional for Anglicans since 1978. I didn’t say anything in my Guardian article about the core doctrinal claims of Christianity concerning the existence God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and post-mortem survival. What I would argue however is that ethics is not core doctrine and, more strongly, that it is a secular discipline and not the Church’s business.
I’m also dismayed that palagious regards my suggestion that the essential business of the Church is to maintain buildings and do liturgy as a dark, cynical “dead Church” perspective. Secular people of course see no point in maintaining sacred space or doing liturgy, but that is precisely what the Church, on any the Church can do and is of its essence. It’s a pity that both liberals and conservatives in the Church seem to have bought into the secular notion that the Church is only alive and doing important things when it’s promoting moral agendas or working for social improvement–activities which, I suggested, were best left to secular agencies.