Discussion of the Episcopal Church

That is casting a huge net on what is the unforgivable sin but lets not get off topic.

 

Neither of those are properly theological issues. There’s nothing about WO, for example, that’s going to cause a person to deny the Trinity or the Incarnation. There is no obvious connection between the two.

The word “heresy” gets thrown around a lot on this site, and in ways that I would expect more from Baptists than Anglicans. For something to count as a genuine heresy, it has to be of such a nature that its adoption entails a clear and present danger of severe loss of faith, and it has to be propagated in such a way that large numbers of people are liable to give it credence. You have to “be somebody” to be a heretic. It’s not a job for just anybody. Every heresy has its heresiarch.

I think it’s possible for people to disagree on the issues you named without it ever being necessary for either side to accuse the other of something like “heresy”. These particular issues don’t rise anywhere close to that level.

 

I just can't be a member of a church that allows gay marriage. I could never be under a woman Bishop as I don't see how women can be priests let alone Bishops and so you have a break in Apostolic Succession right there. I don't say it is a heresy but just wrong and harmful in the long run.

 

Technically we don’t allow it. The State does. All the Church did was bring its own canons in line with the current state of anti-discrimination law.

 

I don't think that's "all" the Episcopal Church did with respect to gay marriage. TEC caved on a moral principle. They failed to maintain a Biblically sound stance on the issue.

There was no legal impetus for TEC to "bring its canons in line" with the Court's ruling that same-sex couples have a right to marry. Those couples can go someplace else to get married. Justice of the peace. Las Vegas. Unitarian Church. Whatever! Just as a bakery has a right to refuse to make a wedding cake with two little men on top for a gay couple, a church pastor or rector has a right to refuse to officiate at such a wedding. Freedom of religion wins the day. But by all appearances, TEC was willing (dare I say 'eager'?) to cave in to the LGBTQ community. This speaks volumes about TEC.

I'm not sure the thread's label, "discussion of TEC," was the best choice. Maybe "disgusted with TEC" would have been more apt.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that TEC is not a Christian denomination. Rather, I think they've lost their way somewhat and departed from orthodoxy on a couple of issues.

 

I think this is a perfectly reasonable position to hold. Maybe not the Apostolic Succession bit, sounds a bit Roman, but I understand how you could disagree with female priests and refuse to be a member of a church that ordains them.

But let's be clear, that's not the initial contention in this thread - @anglican74 is not even claiming TEC is heretical. Heretics are still Christian. Anglican74 is asserting that TEC is no longer Christian, they're heathens/pagans. If they are not Christian, then they're are a new religion all unto themselves. That, of course, is just patently ridiculous.

 

The Episcopal Church. I understand that some members here have at some stage been part of TEC, and are now members of other Anglican Churches in North America. There are undoubtedly many things I have observed from afar in terms of TEC that I have found concerning, if not challenging. Yet there have also been things I have found positive, and helpful. Bishop Michael Curry I often find inspiring humble and thoughtful. Bishop Spong, perhaps not so much. At the end of the day I feel that TEC is a bit like the curates egg.

I don't feel that this post was at all helpful. Clearly there are several Churches in the United States with some allegiance to the Anglican Tradition.

The ultimate task of the Church is to proclaim the everlasting Gospel within the context of the shifting sands of each contemporary society in which we find ourselves. When I was in Papua New Guinea we had to deal with the question of polygamy, when someone with 4 wives came for baptism. We resolved the kept and cared for all their wives, however if one of them was to die (...) then they were not to be replaced. Many found this a difficult compromise, however in the circumstance it was reasonable.

Anglicans since the time of Mathew Parker have dealt with compromise and conflict as we have made our way in the world. It is OK to not agree with what TEC is doing in one circumstance or another. It is OK to be quite clear about that. To me, however, it is a step to far to declare it not to be a Church, especially whilst they do remain in communion with Canterbury. Now that is clearly not the be all of being Anglican, though for many years it was the measure.

 

back in the 1930s, J. Gresham Machen wrote an important and influential book called Christianity and Liberalism, where he argued that the liberalism which then was taking over the mainline churches in western societies was not a form of christianity but a new religion entirely…

https://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc609/

similarly on the RCC side of things when Pius X tried to resist the RCC’s takeover by new liberal believers, he wrote Pascendi Domini Gregis arguing that the new modernist christianity is not a form of it but a new religion… You can find a similar sentiment in things like the Oath Against Modernism

https://onepeterfive.com/pius-modernism-relevant/

so it seems I am in good company with voices from all various aisles of the Christian walk, that the liberal/modernist form of christianity is more properly a new religion than anything else

 

You all allows it and don't ban it as the Bible is against it. Just because the state allows does not mean we should. We, as Christians are not meant to conform to the world but to we are meant to call the world to repentance.

 

We have Apostolic Succession. It is the legitimate form of church governance and it is the only guarantee that our sacraments are true sacraments. We lose it at our own peril

 

The key question is: (a) should the Bible determine one’s morality, or (b) should morality guide one’s understanding of the Bible?

One of the problems with opposition to b is that no one involved consistently follows a. So while those who share my commitment to b are consistent about it, those who favor a allow for exceptions. What justifies those exceptions? Either the Bible does, or a prior commitment to morality does. If the former, then the Bible grants exemptions from following the Bible; if the latter, then we’re back at b.

It is not possible to avoid the question of how the Bible’s moral imperatives can be rationally justified. Rationality and morality come from God, and we apply them to our interpretation and application of the biblical text and trust that we will not be led astray in the process.

 

It should be A and we should always be striving for sanctification all the while knowing we will probably never make it. Our failure to consistanly live up to A does not mean we should give up and create our own morality and then apply it to the Bible. God's morality is binding on us not our morality binding on God.

 

To be fair though I think Episcopals are Christians. Just thought I should point that out. I am also going to encourage a friend of mine to go to the local Episcopal Church because he keeps getting invited there. He does not go to church now so if it gets him in church then I am all for it.

 

There it is, modernism, another religion

Descent of the Modernists, E. J. Pace (1922)

 

I don't agree, but that's a decision we all have to make. There are some institutions and practices that are alleged to have come from God - slavery, capital punishment for juveniles, etc. - that I have no problem rejecting as patently immoral. If my basis for doing so is not the Bible, then it must be something else.

There is no way I know of to prohibit SSM within the confines of secular law, with its twin commitments to (1) mutual consent, and (2) non-discrimination. These principles are also perfectly rational. At the same time, the symbolism of the Christian rite of sacramental marriage is one of double reunification: (3) male and female back into a single humanity (cf. Gen 2), and (4) humanity with God (cf. Gen. 3). The only arrangement that does this symbolism justice is biblical marriage. Being a liturgical conservative, I could therefore justify restricting the sacramental rite in such a way, while still allowing the possibility that clergy may pray for and with those members of the Church who have entered secular marriages, including SSM. For this reason I do have some misgivings about the way some of these things have gone as of late, but they don't rise anywhere close to the level of something like "heresy" or "apostasy" or anything like that. And I'm committed to LGBTQ inclusion in any case.

 

I agree. My point is on female ordination breaking Apostolic Succession. The Romans assert Anglicans are not apostolically succeeded because we don't follow all of their rules and practices in ordaining priests, even though we have a clear mechanical succession. The Anglican view has always been tolerant of a very broad definition of apostolic succession. To start inserting rules into what it means to be apostolically succeeded, beyond simply an unbroken chain of commitment, beliefs and mission is a bit iffy to me, and dangerous given the murky historical practices of some generations over the past 2000 years.

 

Women can't be priest or bishops. How can they pass along apostolic succession, which is passed through Bishops, if they really are not Bishops to begin with? That is the question. Nothing more. With women Bishops the succession stopped with their consecrator because the woman bishop is not a Bishop and can pass nothing along.

 

This gets repeated a lot, but things don't become more true from mere repetition. As it stands, your statements are mere assertions without evidence, and can be just easily dismissed as such. On the contrary, there is nothing that says women are incapable of receiving Holy Orders, nor has Anglicanism ever been committed to the notion that only a mechanical, episcopal succession guarantees the validity of the sacraments.

 

you have been round and round on this issue on this board. No point rehashing it for the 8th time here. Needless to say I find you very wrong on that and on you leaning towards memorialism and other issues. We just don't see eye to eye or see and evaluate the Bible and Tradition the same way.

 

To anyone who wanders what the Episcopal Church is like, I'll just link to my post from 2018:

Episcopal News website calls the Trinity a 'heresy'