Traditional worshippers complain “happy clappers” are taking over Tasmania’s Anglican Church.
“Happy clappers” are people who sometimes froth at the mouth and speak in strange tongues.
Traditionalists blame Tasmania’s Anglican Bishop John Harrower, who they say has championed an evangelical style of worship and made traditional churchgoers feel “second-class” and “oppressed”.
But Bishop Harrower said the church had to offer contemporary services to stay relevant.
“We have been adding contemporary services to our mix to reach a contemporary world and older people struggle with that,” he said.
“We are a democratic organisation and of course a minority who don’t support the change may not be happy.”
“Froth at the mouth”?
There is an interesting (though old) report on the trends in church attendance across Australia including Tasmania here
http://www.anglicantas.org.au/reference_statistics/
It shows that between 1991 and 2001 attendance in the Tasmanian diocese fell from 7,200 to 4,800 — the second fastest decline of any diocese. Perhaps the new bishop had a reason for promoting change!
The same statistics show that the Sydney diocese was the only to show significant growth (from 47,000 to 52,000) and that in 2001 that diocese had 30% of all the Anglicans at worship — even though it had only 20% of those which gave their denomination as Anglican in the census.
I should have added there is a startling graph on page 23 showing how much younger the Sydney Anglicans are than the rest. 26% of those attending Sydney’s churches are over the age of 60 whereas 45% of those attending the rest of the Australian Anglican churches are.
Good grief, are they really frothing at the mouth? Or is this exaggeration?
I usually associate “happy-clappy” with insipid praise music and the like (no offense intended to fans of non-insipid praise music.)
It sounds like someone here — where “someone” is “Dr. Christian Garland” — is conflating a somewhat more contemporary, evangelical style of worship with what I’m used to thinking of as “charismatic” actions… speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, that kind of thing. Possibly that might involve someone frothing at the mouth, although that seems a bit unlikely.
I’m a little surprised he didn’t throw in accusations of snake handling; but maybe that’s a uniquely American thing?
What is the use of growing Anglican churches if they are just going to be Baptist or Presbyterian. Let those folks go to Baptist or Presbyterian churches. To be Anglican is NOT A THEOLOGICAL DISTINCTION ONLY, it INCLUDES A METHOD OR WORSHIP, ie. The Prayer Book. Now I have nothing against Presbyterians or Baptists (I used to be Presby and much of my family is Baptist), but for a “Bishop” to force out true Anglicans in favor of “Presbyterians with (or in this case, maybe without) a Prayerbook” is a bad thing. Better to just turn the buildings over to the Presbyterians or Baptists and not try to maintain the falsehood that they are still “Anglican Churches.”
So, what’s the charismatic Episcopalian to do? We follow the same liturgy, confess our faith using the same creed, and read the same lectionary. So what if we raise our hands in worship? So what if someone publicly speaks in tongues? Does that make one less “Episcopalian”? To my knowledge we are still under the bishop.
As for frothing at the mouth and I can only assume someone was seeing things in his own imagination.
For myself, I don’t care much for the repetitious songs because I really think that if one says it right the first time, one need not repeat it and that, if not, repetition does not improve the words.
Some folks seem to thirve on the repetitive songs and maybe God likes them too. Anyway, the “Praise Songs” are for Him, not me.
Frances Scott
#6 It’s in fact descriptively true that Anglicanism includes a variety of ways of worship and has done so since at least the early seventeenth century. The moderately “catholic” worship of most TEC parishes – candles on the altar, “catholic” vestments etc. was itself very controversial when it began to be introduced in the mid nineteenth century.
We have this same problem of “staying relevant” in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. This is being fostered by people who want to conform the church to the world instead of the other way around.
Frothing at the mouth? An outbreak of rabies I expect.
Did anyone utter the words “slippery slope?” Surely not. Larry
AMEN, recchip (6). Amen.
I add my Amen to the above
7,
I think the fear is that the more Charismatic a parish becomes, the less inclined they are to stay rooted to the liturgy, lectionary, saying the creed, etc. That’s been the experience in England, at least, where many, many evangelical/charismatic churches are jettisoning any liturgy at all (not just the BCP, but Common Worship) in favor of ‘Morning Prayz’ or something like that.
recchip at #6, evan miller at #12 and rob k at #13,
Before you go assuming that (in the words of recchip):
“a “Bishop†to force out true Anglicans in favor of “Presbyterians with (or in this case, maybe without) a Prayerbook†is a bad thing”,
I suggest you investigate the facts. You have read one article by a liberal sympathiser, and now you know everything about the Anglican Church in Tasmania!
The situation there is complex (as Anglican church politics always are), but it certainly is NOT a case of “soulless evangelical non-Anglican worship” vs “good sound catholic Anglican worship”.
As always, a liberal journalist can throw around a few loaded words like “evangelical” and “traditional”, and instantly get orthodox christians making highly critical judgments about somewhere they have never been. Ho hum…