Several Northeast Ohio congregations that are part of a breakaway movement from the U.S. Episcopal Church have joined an American Anglican church body.
St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Bay Village, the Anglican Church of the Good Samaritan in Cleveland, St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Fairlawn, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Akron and St. Anne in the Fields in Madison this week joined the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
The congregations had been affiliated with the more traditional Diocese of Bolivia. The parishes, other than Good Samartian, which is a new church, broke with the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio in 2005 over disagreements on church teaching, including the decision of the national denomination to ordain an openly gay bishop.
It’s nice to see someone cite “church teaching” as a reason to take action. What are we teaching our children? What is our catechism? Those who feel strongly about gay bishops and gay priests need to ask themselves how this translates to sunday school lessons and catechism classes. Well? How do you teach about this new doctrine?
Your question is excellent and to the point. Here is how Simon Bell, congregational development consultant for the diocese of Toronto answers the question (BTW, this is the same answer, slightly less nuanced, given by many contemporary evangelicals.) Mr. Bell says, “the institutional church – especially a historically liturgical church like Anglicanism – [b]can’t tell people what to believe any more.[/b] In a postmodern environment, people bring their own faith and spirituality to the door.
“Therefore [b]the journey[/b] now has become the key. In the 1950s and 1960s, faith was a collection of statements that you held to or didn’t hold to. [b]Now faith is an exploration of relationships.[/b]
“And the clergy who get that, and reinforce that, are the ones who I think engage with the culture they’re finding. The clergy who say you have to believe this and that, otherwise you don’t belong, are the clergy who are saying simply, ‘Don’t come here.’
“The healthy relationship [that clergy] form with people as they explore faith is what’s really important, and we need to give them the space to do that. And that might bring us to question our own theological point of view. But that’s good, that’s a healthy thing.”
Sorry about the “yelling.” I did not mean to bold the whole thing. Please ignore the bold type 😉
[i] “Tired of Hypocrisy wrote: It’s nice to see someone cite “church teaching†as a reason to take action. What are we teaching our children? What is our catechism? Those who feel strongly about gay bishops and gay priests need to ask themselves how this translates to Sunday school lessons and catechism classes. Well? How do you teach about this new doctrine?” [/i]
Too bad that it is coming out of the revisionist 1979 “Other Book” than an Orthodox BCP, change as much as they want, yet the formula(s) for error(s) are/is still there.
I was considering St. Barnabas, but they are misguidedly entrenched in the “Other Book” and not the Book of Common Prayer.
KJC402 – In any of the Ohio orthodox Anglican churches got their theology out of the 1979 TEC BCP, they probably would still be in TEC. My family was part of St. Luke’s, Akron, from 1977-1986, and at no time did we fall into the liberal traps of the 1979 TEC BCP. Among many of the orthodox Anglican churches that have separated from TEC, I am sure that there will need to be a distancing of each parish from the remnants of the “peace and justice” “gospel” that was used from the TEC BCP, but I have not seen that any of the culture-driven pop theology of the 1979 TEC BCP has tainted the actual beliefs or operational lives of these parishes. Having been in Truro church since about 1987, I can say the same for it – we have finally switched away from the 1979 TEC BCP prayers of the people, which could as easily be said by a non-Christian who believed prayer to some sort of life force had efficacy. But that certainly does not mean that Truro was steeped in TEC apostasy prior to the switch.
Incidentally, I have no problem calling the 1979 book the “1979 TEC BCP”. It is the Book of Common Prayer for the religion of TEC, studiously ascribed to, or not ascribed to (optional usage being an overriding tenet of that religion) by each TEC parish.
I hope that we all can in the not too distant future have a BCP based on something like the 1662 English or 1928 US BCP, with accurate but updated language so that it is understandable by everyone (remembering William Tyndale who wanted to bring the Bible to “every plowboy.”, we should do at least as well with any edition of the BCP).
As a more recent member of St Lukes Akron, I can agree with Bill Cool. The prayer book was not an issue.
Actually, there are very few prayer books at St Lukes. (there might have been about 12 for a congregation of 600). There was never a debate or even comment about the version of the prayer book.
Though prayer books are nice, scripture is the authority and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is a key element of the services there.
It’s a fun place to worship. Though the other congregations operate differently, they share the same dedication to the word of God.