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….
“2. It may be preferable to grin and bear the Episcopal situation and to fortify yourselves with home prayer meetings and bible study to edify you in fellowship and discernment. Certainly it may be preferable to maintain this situation until the results and fallout of Lambeth ’08 are fully known – say late ’08 or early ’09.”
Montanism, anyone?
Dr. Toon writes as if everyone who is Anglican is fully adult and is not raising impressionable children. I wish he would address this aspect of things. The other reality is that the Episcopal brand name is in tatters, which makes evangelization toward the unchurched extremely problematic. A great deal of energy must be expended in explaining the political situation, often to those who only have the rudiments of Christian understanding. That being said, I have a great deal of respect for him.
” However, if after most careful study, prayer and the exercise of spiritual discrimination, you believe that you must secede from TEC then recognize that what you are entering is, if not a mine-field, then a very hazardous terrain”
The FUD approach rears its head…
Dr Toon puts all the various groups that have left TEC into neat categories such as traditional, evangelical/charismatic, etc. I wonder how many of these churches he has actully worshipped in?
Point 3 of Dr. Toon’s article is one that continues to hit me personally. It’s hard to know where to go, and frightening to think that all these various groups will never be able to coalesce into one unified church.
In this regard, I have been meaning to ask about the Province of Nigeria’s Constitution Article 2.1, which reads: “The Church of Nigeria…shall remain one united and [b]indissoluble[/b] Church under God.” Does this have any impact on the CANA churches’ ability to “leave the nest” and become part of an independent new North American province? Are we truly heading toward a new province, or is the plan to create more a loose confederation? And what of Women’s Ordination? The reasserter departees do seem to be putting on the rose colored glasses when they speak about this issue’s impact on future cooperation.
I fully understand why people are departing TEC; I’m there in spirit, but I have all the concerns and issues Dr. Toon writes about. Right now, leaving feels a little like trying to decide between HD-DVD and Blue Ray (or VHS and Betamax for you older folks); both have definite strong points, but in the end only one can be the standard.
Until there’s more clarity, I imagine my family and I will stay right where we are, being (to the best of our abilities) faithful witnesses.
It does not matter where you go if you go to the cross.
The points brought up are valid considerations, to a complex situation. On a personal level I made a choice by doing the footwork. I didn’t ask, I went and observed. It took me over two years of looking and observing, praying, thinking, agonizing and then asking some very blunt questions, then making an informed decision. I am glad I started when I did and very happy with my decision. I would advise anyone individual or group to do just that, look, think, discuss, pray and then ask the “salesman” as Dr. Toon puts it. No matter what the decision, as another poster said, go with God. As revealed in Holy Scriptures, in the faith handed down by the saints for all times, not some modernist, humanist, secular version thought up by people who feel they are intellectually superior. Intellect has little to do with salvation. Faith in the True God is much more signifigant.
[blockquote] “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.â€[/blockquote]
That would be my take. Except that Anglicanism has always been theologically chaotic and has never really had a grasp of what it was about. To think that the situation will be corrected in a generation is naive. As I have posted elsewhere and on my own blog those seeking a more conservative or orthodox (small ‘o’) church have many to choose from. Of course history suggests that over time they too will be subject on some level to the winds of change.
Those seeking “The Church” and not another denomination logically have two choices. Rome or Orthodoxy. For those strongly attached to Western forms of worship there is a growing Western Rite within Orthodoxy.
http://www.westernorthodox.com/western-rite
RalphM, Dr. Toon has been around what he calls “extra-mural Anglicans” for many years, as a visiting preacher and celebrant, an observer, and adviser in many capacities, so he probably knows what he’s been looking at.
You must decide what sort of Anglican you want to be…
Option 1: dying out, by over focusing on worshiping a form of worship, in violation of Cranmer’s own principle in the 1549 Prayer Book, that language and order ought to be in a generation’s first language, (thank you for your attempt at updating Dr. Toon), raising the question whether Cranmer wouldn’t roll over in his grave over the worship of Elizabethan language rather than God (were his life not hid with God in Christ just now); this is the group that Dr. Toon calls “real” Anglican apparently.
Option 2: Preaching the Kerygma that still has the power to transform, in a language that the people of our day can understand, and watching this mission grow in people in resources because we are not selling a form of worship that people have to buy, but rather lifting up Christ himself and His Gospel. This is the group that Dr. Toon condescendingly calls “evangelical/charismatic” (which actually caused and perpetuated the Reformation, i.e. Cranmer, Wesley), and brought in the people who paid for all of the buildings we are all leaving. Apparently, Dr. Toon thinks these jurisdictional efforts are “unreal” by implication. My own church would not exist were it not for the asylum from revisionists that faithful overseas Archbishops are offering: 200 members and growing, reaching out to unchurched and dechurched people rather than simply being a disgruntled group wanting to get worship their way; in addition, the AMiA adds 1 church or fellowship every three weeks, unheard of in the sterile world of the impotent gospel of the Episcopal Church, which begs us not to bother to convert to anything because every little thing is gonna be all right.
Option 3: Follow the lead of the titular head of the Anglican Communion, whose policies are doing nothing to stem the tide of slouching towards irrelevance in his own backyard, the Church of England, to which only 4% of England’s population attends on any given Sunday.
As for me and my house, we will preach the Gospel, join in fellowship with those who will hold out the words of life in creative and effective ways to the people of our generation dying for lack of the Gospel, join in intercession and expectant prayer for those who desperately need a savior, and avoid being yoked to those who are jettisoning the Apostles teaching by claiming the divine right to do so because of their “apostolic” succession, which is just mutated Roman Catholicism gone awry.
That’s all I have to say about that.
For the good news: Dr. Toon has published 5 thousand copies of “An Anglican Prayer Book,” which has portions of the prayer books of 1662 England, 1928 U.S., and 1962 Canada, all in “contemporary” language; (and of course, we refer to language that was once contemporary to Dr. Toon’s contemporaries), but kudos for the effort!
or preaching a Gospel t
Not to forget, all three branches of the worship tradition can be combined very nicely, Christoferos. I’ve attended a good many Charismatic Masses, where the preaching was definately evangelical and the people responded with social service projects during the week. Language can be updated without changing the theology behind the meaning.
There is nothing wrong with the liturgical style of worship, which dates back to the Jewish Temple, and was adopted by the Apostles, according to Justin Martyr in his “Apologia”.