New member and a relatively new Anglican here. I hope to attend my first liturgy at a parish of the "Christian Episcopal Church" this Sunday. I imagine a good 90% of Continuing Anglicans come from the Episcopal Church, but much of my family has been Methodist since the Second Great Awakening. I've been traveling 60 miles to attend liturgical services at a Free Methodist Church, but it feels more and more like empty form imitating function. Well, that's a bit of an oversimplification. Conservatives in the United Methodist Church, in an attempt to revitalize the denomination, are (unknowingly?) promoting the Anglican revival as "paleo-orthodoxy." Thomas C. Oden (general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, as well as an "Ancient Christian Devotional Lectionary") wrote an "Evangelical-Patristic" systematic theology centered on the Apostles' Creed, and William J. Abraham is promoting "post-Protestant Canonical Theism."* And, seeing as how Methodism began as a revival movement within the Church of England, and the Anglican tradition is presently reviving itself (while Methodism has fallen and will not be getting back up), returning to the fold seems like the sensible thing to do. *"The editors call for the retrieval and redeployment of the full range of materials, persons, and practices that make up the canonical heritage of the church, including scripture, doctrine, sacred image, saints, sacraments, and more. The central thesis of the work is that the good and life-giving Holy Spirit has equipped the church with not only a canon of scripture but also with a rich canonical heritage of materials, persons, and practices. However, much of the latter has been ignored or cast aside. This unplumbed resource of canonical heritage waits for the church to rediscover its wealth."
Welcome aboard Rhys, may God richly bless your time here. I was raised in the UMC too. I feel in love with the liturgy and sacraments of the Episcopal parish that I attendedas well, as my mother was hired as its music minister. It was a love I've nevery lost and knowing what I do about the Wesleys, I've found that the best way to be Methodist is to be Anglican... I don't think I'm familiar with the Christian Episcopal Church. Can you tell me about it?
Welcome aboard Rhys! fascinating account of methodism which I never having been one found truly illuminating.
Thank you. That's a very succinct way to put it. The Christian Episcopal Church (CEC) is a very tiny 1928 BCP denomination -- as far as I can tell, there are about 5 total parishes in Canada, the US, and the Cayman Islands. There is Apostolic Succession through Bp. A. Donald Davies. There's not much information out there, but they are the only Anglican church nearby, so I'm taking a chance. There's an Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) congregation that currently meets in the upstairs of a restaurant in the next town over, but it's just slightly out of reach. If they started their services an hour later, I could attend. I suppose I should mention that Evangelical church membership in my County stood at just 2.4% in 2010. There's not much to choose from, so I hope the CEC is a fit, or the ACNA congregation grows and moves into a church building closer to home. I would honestly prefer to worship with the ACNA (as I believe they have 'staying power' as a denomination), but I will take any port in a storm. And the CEC church could be great, so there's that. We shall see. From what I can piece together, when the Episcopal Church (TEC) began to ramp up its liberal theology in the late '70s, a group of conservative dissenters tried to form a voluntary parachurch organization within TEC, but didn't have much success -- so they separated and formed the Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) in 1992. In 2002, for some reason, the Diocese of the West split from the EMC and formed the Christian Episcopal Church. I suspect the split had to do with whether or not to allow the 1979 BCP in the EMC, but I can't be sure. As a relative outsider, I don't have much of a stake in some of these secondary debates, so I'm rolling with it for now. Thanks. Methodist history and theology has been a hobby of mine for several years. You and Lowly Layman might be interested in my outline of Methodist sects, a project I started to demonstrate the theological substance of the Wesleyan tradition (against the misguided neo-Calvinist belief that there isn't any), and to aggregate links to public domain works of theology (like Miley's Systematic Theology, or Pope's Compendium) for other Methodists who might be interested in preserving their heritage. Most of those are in the Methodist Episcopal and Wesleyan Methodist sections.
Dear Rhys, from what I've read on this forum and elsewhere, I'd have more confidence in the authenticity of ACNA