The story of how the church (and by “the church” I mean the whole Christian church); how the churches do their work and carry out God’s plan throughout history is undoubtedly a mystery hidden within the mind of God.
But this much can be said, I think. God gives gifts not only to individuals, but also to institutions; institutional gifts; corporate charisms. So, the churches too have been given various gifts at various times “to prepare God’s people for works of service” and for the hastening of the Kingdom of God.
I believe that God has given our church–the Episcopal Church–a special gift, a special charism–the gift of leadership, the gift and the task of going first, the gift of being in the vanguard. Another way of saying that is that the Episcopal Church has been called to speak the Good News of God in Christ to an ever-changing world.
I think the key to Peter’s sermon comes at the end when he says that TEC bears witness to the fact that the church and the modern world can get along together. In fact, when you go down the list of historical events mentioned in the sermon you see Peter’s church adopting the modern world’s agenda. It’s like an Episcopal version of the Whig theory of history(every day in every way we’re getting better). Reading Peter’s sermon you do not get any sense of the Church as offering a critique to the modern world’s agenda. Peter could use a dose of Pius IX.
Or the Gospel: “be not conformed, but be YE transformed”.
I want to throw up when I hear liberals quoting Paul or has Mr Carey says “apostles of Paul” who wrote Ephesians.
I again had the pleasure of attending Wellspring Anglican in Denver (or more accurately Englewood). They just happened to be going through the book of Ephesians and Ephesians 5:3 was part of the sermon: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” The priest stated that sex outsides the covenant marriage is included in sexual immorality. Wow. No fudge.
The parish is growing like wildfire. It is a very unique place. They have people off the streets to people from the swankiest parts of Denver. All bound to each other in a Christ-filled love. Really wonderful.
[blockquote] And yet, considering our small size, we’re quite influential and we play a significant role in the religious and civic life of our nation. We always have.[/blockquote]
As someone who is old enough to remember when ushers wore morning suits, I can say that this was true up until about the 80’s. I don’t think it is any more, other than perhaps as the school troublemaker that attracts attention, though I don’t think that is what he meant. That statement would have been true when the episcopal church was something of a chaplaincy to the upper middle and upper classes. That carried some bad baggage, but it also meant that the church was socially and culturally influential. At this point, the episcopal church has lost most of those people (in NYC, to Catholicism and Presbyterianism like Redeemer, or, most likely, they simply don’t go to church). However, I find it telling that a New York priest feels he has to connect with an episcopal past that is as dead as the private club cars on the New Haven line in order to feel “significant”. I have long noted that many episcopal revisionists seem to put great stock in self-identification with perceived elites.
I agree with everyone above (#1-4). But let me add a couple thoughts.
First, IMHO, the Achilles Heel of Anglicanism has always been our worldliness, even more than our doctrinal ambiguity and vagueness. Here in VA, it’s been especially blatant, because from the start, Anglicanism was associated with the plantation-owning class, the Washingtons, Jerffersons, Madisons, etc. The all too common mentality has been: “Let the Methodists and Baptists have the masses, the uncouth hoi polloi; we’ve got a lock on the aristocrats, and that’s all we really care about.”
But in a post-Constantinian era, where the separation of church and state has morphed into a divorce between Christianity and culture, now the social and economic elites have turned even on us. And the attempt to appease religion’s “cultured despisers” has proven futile (as appeasement always does). Although we keep jettisoning more and more of historic Christian beliefs and practices to accommodate the powers that be in our society, this time they just aren’t interested in even maintaining the pretense of being Christian anymore.
That’s why Dr. Stroud’s #2 was so apt. We desperately need to hear and take seriously the call to renounce the ways of the world, and to stop being conformed to it, but rather transformed (Rom 12:2) by the renewing of our minds through the truth. Or the even more pointed call to “Love NOT the world, neither the things in the world…” in 1 John 2:15-17.
Second, we are being forced into a far more confrontational, far more aggressive style of evangelism than we Anglicans have ever known (at least in the West). We can’t rely on people coming to church and being self-motivated to seek a church home to belong to, as happened so naturally in the “golden days” of the 1950s. It’s no longer enough to say to the world, [i]”The Episcopal Church [b]welcomes[/b] you.”[/i] Instead, we must learn how to obey the Great Commission to GO and MAKE DISCIPLES (not make new members or even converts, but disciples).
Fortunately, there are a growing number of highly attractive, steadily expanding Anglican congregations (like the one robroy describes in #3) that are doing just that, evangelizing like crazy, and seeking to help those new converts grow into full maturity in Christ. One example that I know fairly well is big Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, IL (where both my children attend). That AMiA parish averages over 700 in Sunday attendance and is overflowing with young families and kids, and LOTS of college students. And in large part this is directly due to their refussal to water down the gospel and the radical demands of authentic discipleship.
But let’s make no mistake and entertain no illusions here. Repenting of our worldliness and our capitulation to the ways of this age and embracing a truly counter-cultural lifestyle is going to be EXTREMELY TRAUMATIC for a state church tradition like ours that’s historically been so heavily compromised by its alliance with the social elites in England and America. It’s nothing less than a New Reformation, with all that implies. And it implies a very great deal indeed.
David Handy+
Passionate advocate of anti-Erastian, post-Constantinian style Anglicanism for the 21st century.
the Good News of God in Christ
I think that the author needs to more carefully study the Nicene and Athanasian creeds (as well as the first chapter of John, Philipians 2 etc.).
We are followers of Christ, baptized into his Body, cooperators in his saving work.
And indeed Martin Luther’s five solae.
At the very least, in these troubled times, he needs to be more careful to reformulate his wording to avoid any hint of adoptionism and Peleganism(? Doesn’t seem quite right).