Reformed Episcopal?

Looking for information about the Reformed Episcopal strand.

 

I think @Stalwart is a member of the REC

 

Thank you. I hope to be able to discuss the REC with Stalwart.

 

There are two things about the REC which are most important: its rather sordid past, and its pretty incredible present (and future).

Its past is rooted in the sordid battle between the Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals, both of them new and foreign ideologies which invaded Anglicanism in the 19th century. The Episcopal Church had a rather strong fling with Anglo-Catholicism soon after the latter’s emergence in the 1840s. Soon a lot of things were reinterpreted according to AC ideology. Some TEC churchmen, possessed of the other new ideology of Evangelicalism, rightly took AC advances as corruption, but didn’t realize that theirs was a corruption as well. People are fallen and compete over foolish corruptions as if they were golden morsels.

So to preserve “their” way over the AC way, in the 1870s the evangelical TEC churchmen schismed and formed the Reformed Episcopal Church, rewriting Anglican doctrines in their new REC canons and formularies. And that’s what it was for over a hundred years, this small odd outpost on the edges of Christendom.

However something happened in the 1980s. At that time the REC even as small as it was, was on its way out, with emptying churches etc. I was told that the consensus was the REC would disappear by the year 2000. To the helm of REC came two men, Jonathan Riches, and Royal Grote. Riches became the new REC Presiding Bishop. They were of neither the Evangelical nor Anglo-Catholic mold, and thus began the epic 20 year process of retrieving and refurbishing the REC as an outpost of Classical Anglicanism. Grote planted a new REC Diocese in Texas, which in 10 years outgrew the ENTIRE Rec which existed to that elsewhere. The REC Seminary was refurbished in its curriculum to retrieve classical Anglican views. And the REC became involved in larger Anglican movements once again.

Thus the REC became a founding jurisdiction of ACNA in 2008. This was a huge move, both for ACNA’s fledgling legitimacy and for REC’s spiritual well-being. One of our bishops is on record saying that a big impetus in helping found ACNA was that we repented of the sin of schism.

And thus while the rest of ACNA struggles with a post-TEC future, often without buildings of their own, with doctrinal corruptions such as women’s ordination, and liturgical baggage (all older clergy having been catechized in the infamous 1979 TEC Prayerbook), the REC stands as a beacon; they have shiny buildings which have never been taken away; women’s ordination isn’t even thought of; and the 1928 Prayerbook is solidly enmeshed within REC culture.

 

I have great hope for the ACNA though. Most diocese don't ordain women. We have a pretty solid prayer book in my opinion. We need to rectrifiy things and get rid of a good bit of Calvinism and evangelicalism and go back to our roots but over all we look good. We have kept our apostolic succession and are a shining light in a darkening world.

 

Oh I agree about the future of ACNA. It is an incredibly strong and shining beacon, considering all the options.

 

I agree about ACNA. It has its problems (the historical baggage of WO being one of those) but I have found it to be a robust and Gospel-centric church.

ACNA does have something of a "muddle through" character in terms of theology, but given its history, that's hardly surprising. Anglicanism itself has never been what you'd call a doctrinally pure faith -- there's always been a tension between "is it a Protestant church" and "is it a Catholic church". (I know the usual answer is "Yes!" but I think this answer is often given in a facile way. Lutherans would probably make the same case for their denomination.)

ACNA does seem to tend towards the "low church" rather than "high church" way of doing church business (at least in my province) and they do have a distinctly Evangelical cast (we read a lot of stuff from Spurgeon and Sproul, for example, but also a lot of stuff by C S Lewis and J I Packer). Of course to me that's a good thing -- I believe that *all* Christians should be "evangelical" in the sense that they spread the Good News about Christ. Every Christian should participate in the Great Commission.

The theology is broadly Reformed, though I wouldn't call it "Calvinist"*. Our assistant Pastor is on loan to us from a nearby Presbyterian church while our senior Pastor is recovering from an illness, and his sermons certainly don't cause us to burst into flames or anything. (He doesn't administer the sacraments, however -- a male Anglican priest baptizes and gives communion.)

I like ACNA because the leadership gets it. They understand the cultural and religious battles we are fighting. They understand that ACNA is carrying a lot of historical baggage that will need to be sorted out, but I think that they are approaching the various issues (like WO) with sensitivity and discernment. They understand the distinctive character of the Anglican confession and are working to make the new Prayer Book the centerpiece of worship going forward.

The COVID pandemic has had one salutary effect: some of the more loosely-affiliated congregants have fallen away, but even more have entered. We have had to expand services just to accommodate everyone. (In fact, we've had to set up a reservation system for Christmas services because with social distancing we'll have to do three or four services that day!)

*John Calvin himself probably wouldn't qualify as a "Calvinist", but I don't want to open that can of worms here. I would call ACNA's theology "Cranmerian" in the sense that it is founded upon the 39 Articles of Religion, and that's certainly reformed enough for me (and I'm essentially Puritan in my theology).

 

I was once a licensed reader in an REC parish. And my rector was one of the early students to attend Cranmer House when it was in Shreveport.

The REC has a lot of commonalities with the Continuing churches these days. REC and APA have an inter-communion agreement. There is still the little pocket around the seminary in Eastern Pennsylvania that actually takes the Declaration of Principles seriously. The leadership has creatively dismissed that statement in recent years.

 

I particularly applaud the REC for their good work in Cuba. That diocese is a thriving and growing project. The OAC was recently approached by a bishop in Cuba and the decision was made to not compete with the REC there. We referred the guy to the REC work.

 

Cuba is really an incredible story; a communist long post-Christian country, and yet with a flowering new traditional Christianity led by the REC.

 

Spurgeon, Sproul, and Packer are all very Calvinist. It is the double predestination and total depravity that I find most objectionable in the TULIP and I find to be anti patricitic. I don't believe at all that anywhere in the ACNA is that in its theology and I am happy about that. I love to see your church holding the line on who administers the sacraments and I agree we all should be evangelicals in the sense of spreading the Gospel Message.

We have to slowly get rid of WO but they are probably doing it in a wise way .

 

I think ACNA is trying to re-center all the dioceses on the 39 Articles and the Creeds (Nicean and Athanasian) as a baseline theology. Which is great, because it's very much in the "mere Christianity" mold. They're also publishing a new catechism (To Be A Christian) which I expect to be used in the process of membership. ACNA will have its own regional and provincial character, of course: TEC was always a New England-y sort of church, and CofE obviously is tied to the culture and milieu of England. It'll be interesting to see what kind of cross-pollination we get from the GAFCON/Global South Anglican churches, which tend to be far more Pentecostal in church practice than I'm comfortable with.

 

To Be a Christian is out and a good read. I recommend it. I would love to get some cross pollination from GAFCON.

 

I'm curious, how would you define "A-C ideology" and "evangelical ideology," and what seem to be their most prominent theological divergences from classical Anglicanism? I have no notions about this and would like to learn a bit.

 

Basically the 19th century caused a huge identity crisis for Christianity. The onset of the French Revolution and aggressive secularism on the one hand pulled out the supportive State from under the Christian institutions. The onset of the French Enlightenment similarly pulled out the support of reason from under Christian doctrines. (for the prior centuries reason and nature were seen as 100% in harmony with Christian doctrines).

How Churches dealt with it differed. The two most important moves were made by the two most aggressive denominations of the period: the Methodists, and the Roman Catholics. With the methodists we forget just how important they once were, and how powerful. They basically created Evangelicalism as a format: a mixture of irreverent emotionalism, powerful preaching, revivalist theology, and relentless evangelism. This magic recipe was so successful as to propel them into becoming by far the largest and most rapidly growing Protestant denomination by the year 1900. The future of Christianity seemed to clearly belong to them.

The other denomination that aggressively answered the crisis of Modernity were the Roman Catholics. After a pitiful 18th century and the Pope imprisoned by Napoleon, the ensuing 19th century saw a great hardening. The Jesuits became powerful again, Aquinas and classical RC doctrine were reasserted like never before, dissenters and 'liberals' were imprisoned and executed in the Papal States. When the Papal States fell in 1870 that should've brought on another RC crisis but it didn't; they tripled down again: more Thomas Aquinas, stronger rejection of any modernism. As some Protestants began to fall to liberal theology, the RCs sounded like they lived in the 1400s: no to evolution, no to feminism, no to Biblical Criticism. Vatican I silenced all liberals, while the Jesuits and other Thomistic missionaries reasserted classical philosophy to pummel the destructive new philosophies and ideologies of relativism, communism, nazism. In short, the future of Christianity seemed to clearly belong to them also.

Anglicans were going through the crisis of Modernism. Looking on these two developments, there emerged two camps. Some Anglicans (Charles Simeon, JC Ryle, etc) saw the strength and apparent success of Methodism (evangelicalism), and came to believe that this was "the future". For Anglicanism to survive, its doctrines had to be reinterpreted in light of this:
-high observance was castigated as 'romanist'
-sacraments were reinterpreted as a memorial ceremony; baptismal regeneration, real presence, etc were forcefully written out of Anglican Prayerbook and older theological manuals
-preaching and missions became celebrated like never before

Because of the latter, 'evangelical Anglicanism' quickly grew, and the movement's credibility was established.

Other Anglicans (Newman, Pusey, Keble) saw the strength and apparent success of Romanism, and came to believe that that was the future. Anglican doctrines were reinterpreted in light of this:
-7 sacraments and ex opere operato were introduced; the priests became semi-gods, as they were in Rome
-Anglican doctrine became reinterpreted in light of Thomism; you saw the rise of Anglo-Catholic Summas, such as E.L. Mascall
-a militant war on Modernism became fashionable; Anglo-Catholics became famous as anti-feminists, anti-evolutionists; as Protestants began to introduce contraception and abortion, Anglo-Catholics continued having 7-9 children (as all prior Christians)

Because of all this, 'roman-catholic' Anglicanism seemed to grow, and the movement's credibility was established.

And thus as a classical Anglican continued to hold on to his old faith, these two behemoth movements in a pincer movement caught him trapped: they appeared to evangelize all the peoples, to hold all the 'true' beliefs (even if mutually incompatible), and to basically own the future. Little did he know that both movements were just a figment in time, and would both disappear by the 21st century.

 

Everything old is new again, and 'twas always thus.

Pure Anglicanism (to the extent that there is such a thing) aspires to be "mere Christianity". This quote from Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher is telling:

That's pretty amazing: "The Anglican Communion has no particular thought, practice, creed or confession of its own." The Anglican position -- at least as stated, however it may be practiced in the real world -- is that our faith is simply that faith handed down from the Apostles. It is the "mere Christianity" spoken of by C. S. Lewis, and boiled down to its essentials in the 39 Articles of Religion. Or so ACNA tells me; I suspect TEC and CofE members are already vigorously shaking their heads.

My point here is that the actual theology of "Anglicanism" is more fluid in practice than it is in print. I'm not sure that there ever was such a thing as a "purely Anglican" theology, even in a cultural church-practice sense. Anglican faith is distinctive (i.e., it is clearly differentiated from Lutheran or Calvinist Reformed or Roman Catholic theology) but it also incorporates elements of those other currents within itself. Anglicans didn't adopt the "via media" philosophy in a later age; it was always part and parcel of the faith even before the Reformation. The GAFCON/ACNA movement is an attempt to reform Anglicanism in somewhat the same way that Anglicans themselves were attempting to reform the Roman Catholic faith they followed for so long -- but it's not a return to a previous status quo, but rather an attempt to reform (literally "re-form") the actual church around theological principles.

I think this is a praiseworthy thing (it's why I am an Anglican, after all) but I do think that modern Anglicanism is a new thing, not a return to a previous state of affairs. But this is not unique to us -- the Christian landscape generally is undergoing this same transformation.

 

I see the ACNA and GAFCON as basically reasserting Anglican Identity. Apostolic, sacramental, and outward looking.

 

This is the only part of your post that I'd disagree with. It's not that Anglican orthodoxy somehow was always pilfering concepts from others in order to stay in some sort of middle. I don't believe there was a 'middle' in the 16th century. You may think that Protestants are the liberal wing or whatever, but did you know that Protestants required taking the eucharist every week, or at least once a month, while in Rome nobody took the eucharist during mass itself, and people were only allowed to receive after the service, and it was required to be taken only once a year? So were they liberal, or what?

Also did you know that Anglicans consider the episcopacy as 'jure divino', but in Rome, only the Papacy is jure divino, and they believe that bishops are basically an extension of priests, thereby promoting a 2-orders theology in agreement with the Presbyterians? And similarly the Reformers were all hardline Scripturalists, while Rome was vague and fuzzy on where their doctrines came from; isn't that liberalism?

So I fervently don't believe that a theologian looking out the window in the 16th century had a clear sense of what 'the middle' is. I definitely don't think the Anglican divines were out there with a measuring tape trying to always be in the middle among the parties. They were extreme on many of their positions. And rather ordinary in others. And pretty odd in some. And very incredible in others. They were all over the map, because the goal was not to find 'the middle', but rather to tether and anchor the Church to antiquity, no matter what the modern people were saying.

 

Stalwart, I suspect we're closer to each other than not -- Christians often fall into the trap of thinking of "liberal" and "conservative" in modern political terms rather than in theological terms, and that's a dreadful mistake. When I use "liberal" regarding the Christian faith, I generally use it in the sense of something that deviates from the historic theological norm...so in that sense, Protestant theology is liberal because it rejects much Roman Catholic theology (the "conservative" faith at the time of the Reformation). But it is conservative in the sense that it strives to return to the early church as an ideal, and rejects the innovations/errors of the Roman Catholic Church. We are conserving the faith handed down by the Apostles.

Consider the episcopacy -- Anglicans consider it biblically-mandated, and justly so...but do we all agree on what the terms "presbyteros" and "diakonos" and "episcopos" mean? I argue that the office of Deacon in the Anglican church is quite different than that of the early church (in that the early church did not consider it an on-ramp to the priesthood, or probably even an ordained office). The Bible mandates no office of Archbishop or governing body of Bishops -- these are organizations that sprang up to deal with problems of doing church business on a larger scale. The modern church has to deal with problems of scale and governance that the early church didn't have to deal with (or at least left very few records regarding their practices in those respects). Anglicans agree with other Protestants that there are only two Sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) but disagree on many fine theological points of both sacraments ("real presence" in Communion vs purely symbolic, etc.). The Bible is quite clear that women are not permitted in the priesthood, but Anglicans for generations now have embraced the practice.

This is what I mean when I talk about the faith in print and faith as practiced in the world. Creeds, confessions, and systematic theologies are all well and good, but they only go so far in determining what the worshipers in the pews actually believe. So long as a Christian church teaches the true Gospel, the true doctrine, all will be well...but of course the difficulty lies in knowing exactly what the Gospel truth is. I think the Anglicans are the closest to having the answer, and so I am an Anglican. But we need to get better at making that case to the rest of humanity. Our story is true -- now we need to explain to everyone else why it's true. It's not the Anglicanism is the best kind of Christianity; it's that Anglicans strive to practice true Christianity, and thus act as models and evangelists for the faith.

 

It encourages me to see classically-minded Anglicans such as yourselves speaking hope-fully about the ACNA. I minister in one of the most TEC-like dioceses in the province, so I see very little of the good work of reclaiming our heritage that you describe. So it's good to hear that this work is in fact going on, and I hope it continues to spread!