Anglican Communion RIP
Current Affairs October 18th, 2004I have refrained from blogging on the whole Anglican crisis for a variety of reasons. Although I am still interested in the outcome, since I’m no longer Anglican, I wanted to move on. However, I have many Anglican friends whom I wish the best and still have a respect for the best of the Anglicanism’s past (like C.S. Lewis, the great hymn writers, etc.). Here is Yahoo! News’ summary of the Windsor report and it doesn’t look good for the Christian wing of the Anglican communion. Given that the Episcopal presiding “bishop” seems to like what the report has to say, it’s even more bad news for traditionalists. Anglicanism was founded as a state compromise and now faithful Christians within Anglicanism are finding the long held Truth that the Gospel can never be a state compromise. Maybe this report will be different in practice, but as it stands it appears “official” Anglicanism at least is doomed. As a new convert to Catholicism, I can tell my fellow Anglican travelers that the waters of the Tiber are quite nice this time of year (I’ve heard the same thing about the Bosphorus). For those Anglicans not geographically inclined, it means that the the Catholic and/or Orthodox Churches are waiting.
October 18th, 2004 at 8:57 pm
It’s very sad, but predictable. This is probably the end of the Church of Our Saviour as we know it.
October 19th, 2004 at 4:34 pm
Annie,
I hope you are doing well. I like your email address too, by the way. I thought of Our Saviour after I read the report and hope and pray that they are able to find a way to continue to genuinely worship God. Our Saviour understands well that beautiful worship requires the Catholic belief behind it. You and the whole parish are in my prayers as I’m sure everyone will have to make some decisions.
October 22nd, 2004 at 5:03 am
Can I just say (from an Anglican perspective) how little importance many British anglicans give to this? 80% of the people who attend church in the parish I work at probably wouldn’t have any concept of the Widsor Report at all, and if you asked them where New Westminster was they’d probably ask if it was in east London. Recent controversy over Steve Chalke’s atonement theology (who?, you ask) has had a higher profile (he’s a baptist who’s incurred the wrath of some conservatives for appearing to attack substitutionary atonement but he didn’t really). Yes, we are being effected by a press which constantly assumes we are homophobic, but I think it’s a general accusation against christians, focussed against evangelicals, rather than tied specifically to one denomination.
Yes, it’s a lot bigger and more painful for some members of the north american episcopal churches, and some (though I guess not very many) in the global south. But most of us are just getting on with living and speaking the gospel as best we can, and the ‘downbeat’ feel of the Windsor report (which I rather like, personally) may be a way of trying to stop the media blowing it into ‘the big news story for the anglican communion.’ Here are some big news stories for the anglican communion:
Sudan: at least 5000 anglican believers are displaced by militia, churches pulled down and priests imprisoned or forced into hiding.
West Africa: a new anglican church is planted every day.
England: almost every diocese in the country introduces a process of looking at ‘mission shaped churches’ that will revolutionise the way church is done within 20 years.
France: a French-speaking anglican church outgrows its premises and looks for somewhere else to meet…
Eames? Who’s he?
October 22nd, 2004 at 8:47 am
Andy,
I think you’re right from the perspective of the average Anglican. However, I still think this report (and the reaction to it) will have a strong role when historians look back at the history of Anglicanism. The average Anglican during the Reformation probably couldn’t have told you the debates either, but a lot changed during the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth.
October 26th, 2004 at 11:22 am
The possibility of schism is a big deal. Lack of interest from other parts of the communion is part of the problem, as far as I’m concerned.
But that’s just me. This is really just the last straw.
October 26th, 2004 at 12:03 pm
Another british conservative anglican wading in: I don’t think the issue is whether there’s a ‘lack of interest’ in ECUSA’s problems from the rest of the communion. The issue is that we don’t want to pay more attention to ECUSA than we do to the church in Uganda, which has about the same number of attending believers as ECUSA, but far, far greater issues to deal with. We’re weary of having to give more attention to the one than the other. Annie, this doesn’t mean you, personally, are less worthy of attention than a Ugandan peasant woman - but it does mean that you are not more worthy of the communion’s attention either.
October 26th, 2004 at 1:55 pm
I hope Jim hasn’t also written to Ugandan peasants to tell them they’re not more worthy of attention than Sudanese refugees. Annie, if I may speak for your brothers and sisters round the world, we do care about your misery, even if there’s little we can do about it except pray. The Windsor Report may, by launching a covenanted structure, make it possible in the future to avoid others ending up in the siyuation you’re in now.
October 27th, 2004 at 1:49 pm
Thanks all.
what I think I really want is a church governed by a central authoritative body. that probably makes me not so anglican.
Anyway.
May 30th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Why join a Church of bigots and bullies. A non-Christian Church. Surely the Christian Anglican church was better than the Roman Catholic Church, a church so far removed from christianity as to be almost unrecognisable from the early christian church. What do you do about their laws on sexuality. Do you want 10 children or do you just think that pretending to be asexual is OK? Is that Christian? Why join a church for people who believe in behaving like pharisees? Was there not any more Christian church which you could have joined?
May 30th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
As a former Catholic, myself, I am puzzled as to why a young person would want to join the Catholic Church. I have found peace since I recently joined the Anglican Church. It is a pity that you are turning your back on such a compassionate church. The Catholic Church on the other hand, is not compassionate. They do not care about married couples’ hardships. They do not care about people who cannot support lots of children. They do not care about middle-aged women putting themselves at risk from pregnancy. They do not care about people wanting to protect themselves from AIDS. We are not talking about abortion or murder, just condoms. But they have no compassion. If you do not believe what I am saying, go to www.ewtn.com and look up ‘Chapter 98′. You will notice a lot of illogicality there. They have quoted the dear anglican bishops’ statement about contraception from 1930 but have failed to understand the meaning behind the statement. They have drawn all kinds of illogical conclusions from what was said then. They have tried to suggest that those dear bishops were condoning more recent abortificient contraceptives, which is completely ridiculous, since they had not even been invented in 1930! Even if this is not relevant to you now, it may be in the future and you may regret leaving your dear christian anglican brethren.
May 31st, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Anna,
First, let me clear something up. The Catholic Church allows natural family planning and encourages people to have children responsively. Natural Family Planning, when done correctly is 99% accurate. It requires a few days of abstinence a month, but that shouldn’t be too hard for most people. Maybe you consider that uncompassionate, but I look at compassion as Mother Teresa, Catholic (and Christian) hospitals, those who have died serving lepers, etc. Sexual freedom, in my opinion is not the same as compassion.
Finally, I want to say that I respect and love alot about Anglicanism and would certainly consider Anglicans to be Christian and my brothers and sisters in Christ. Although I wouldn’t agree with your decision to leave the Catholic Church, I hope that one day you can at least speak of Cathoicism with a degree of respect and charity.
June 1st, 2005 at 9:36 am
Dear Jonathan,
As someone who has tried NFP for a few years, I just want to clarify what you have said about Natural Family Planning. In order to be truly 99% effective, it requires a woman to abstain for more than one week per month. If a woman’s life is at risk from pregnancy, she is required to abstain from the time of her period until well after the last fertile symptom. Ovulation occurs after the last fertile symptom. The fertile symptoms can go on for 7 days or more and during that time sperm can live in the fertile conditions within the woman’s body for up to 7 days.
The period of abstinence could, therefore, last for three weeks or more depending on how regular the woman’s cycles are. I think that it would be compassionate, in such circumstances, to allow that woman to use condoms just to be sure that she is safe from pregnancy. But, unfortunately, the Vatican shows no such compassion. Not for this woman, whose life is at risk from pregnancy and nor for any other women who cannot support more children.
I would not say that all Catholic priests have no compassion on this subject but, unfortunately, when it is discovered that they have been advising people to use contraception, for special reasons, they are frequently removed from their parishes and punished. (A very public example of this happened recently with the Spanish Bishop, Fr Martinez Camino who was publicly humiliated and lost his mitre because he suggested that it may be acceptable to use condoms, to fight AIDS.)
June 3rd, 2005 at 7:42 pm
Anna,
I am sorry about your situation (I assume you’re talking about your own) and this is certainly a hard case. I think the Church would say that it would require more detailed analysis of the cycle and perhaps that would mean more abstinence. Just to be sure. Of course, I don’t know the exact details. And you make a good point about NFP. To be completely accurate it would require more abstinence. The Catholic Church must also uphold what we see as timeless truth while being aware also of pastoral needs. The Church can work hard to find workable solutions but can’t ultimately go against what is right. If pregnancy could lead to death of the mother then certainly the whole issue has changed quite a bit. I’m not sure what would be an acceptable solution from a Catholic standpoint, but I highly doubt it would involve condoms. I’m sure a moral theologian has addressed it somewhere.
As for diseases, I would like to see moral theologians explore how people with STD’s can faithfully live in accord with Church teaching on both marriage and the prohibition on artificial contraception. Given the high levels of infection especially among our youth, I think it would be something that the Vatican should provide pastoral guidelines about. Also, I wasn’t aware that the Spanish bishop was actually removed.