Seeker, What is your affiliation? I can't remember reading that in your posts. You don't have to say. I was just wondering.
hehe, I did not want to be very specific, but sooner or later it will be obvious the more I post hehe!
I attend mass at a Church of England chapel. It's the only viable Protestant liturgy I can attend now, although I'll consider paying a visit to the Presbyterian church downtown one of these days. I'd attend a Continuing Anglican service if there was one around: the liberal fads of the Church of England are disheartening.
It is precisely because of liberals like those that we must stay within the Communion at all costs. Leaving is not an option, especially when Christ calls us to stand and be witness for the Church in face of virulent opposition. 'Continuing' anglicans, since they are outside of the Communion, are not Anglicans. I only support ACNA because of its increasing formal status with the Provinces of the Communion and not otherwise. It was precisely through this freedom and leisure to leave that the conservatives had abandoned the TEC, and left it alone to be ravaged by liberals. Since the Church of England is the Mother Church in many ways, we must not let it happen there.
OLD CHRISTENDOM, TAKE THIS ADVICE. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TAKE IT AND KEEP IT IN YOUR HEART. It can't be emphasised enough. We need to combat error as the Church Militant, not run away. Purify the Church! Yell! Scream! Shout! Block the way of deathly heresy!
[quote="Stalwart, post: 6589, member: 54"] 'Continuing' anglicans, since they are outside of the Communion, are not Anglicans. What makes an ,'Anglican,' then? Pray do tell! I left the Anglican Communion because after sixty odd years in the ,"Communion," it didn't appear to have any particular beliefs at all. I was asked at the time of W/O to write to two bishops protesting at Women's Ordination , to have a reply telling me not to worry too much ,' we'd get our votes in Synod' and then we could prepare to get back to the old ways. In other words we were putting Christ's revelation to a vote! The Church of England was not the mother church,it was simply the largest segment of the Church IN England, a slightly different thing and it failed to sustain its principles, not for the first time, remember the debacle in the early fifties when The C.of E, voted in favour of the ,'South India,' disaster! Since the Church of England is the Mother Church in many ways, we must not let it happen there.[/quote] Anglicanism is wider than the C.of E.. Anglicanism is catholicism with a western face! The Archdeacon of York, who stayed in the C. of E, and many Anglo Catholics at the time used to claim that the C.of E was a protestant sect and that they were staying put because they had been placed there by God. The Continuing Church, is the last remnant of Catholic Anglicanism, !
So, perhaps I should keep attending masses in the Roman Church then and combating error from within. Is that your take or does this "stay at all costs" just applies to the Church of England?
My advice applies to those who live and worship in Episcopal churches whose leadership recognizes that they are mere men. Rome can no more repent, and return to orthodoxy. The events of 1870 hardened their hearts permanently. We can only go where men are open to the truth. Rome retains tyranny, and excommunicates anyone who tries to reform the core. There is no hope there. Christians have tried to stay in the Roman Church and reform it. They attempted to combat error, and they were censured, excommunicated, hunted down, tortured, burned, and cut to pieces. The Church of England got out of that mindset long ago. She has recognised her own fallibility from the start. England may have many errors now, but she is a Church which can acknowledge her erroneous ways and repent. That is the crucial difference. No one can give what he does not have.
Indeed, we both know that well enough from experience. The fact remains, however, that on the very deepest core issues, Rome will brook no denial. It may give concessions on Justification, Islam, Judaism, and the use of Latin, but on Infallibility, the blessed virgin Mary, and a few other things, it will fight tooth and nail, and will hear no dissent. It is infallible, and that is that. Rome excommunicated Lefebvre for some ordinations. Anything encroaching on their empire is crushed. We see the facade of Vatican II, and we know it's a mask. I'm going to be received into the Anglican Church of Canada on Jan. 6 in order to shore up the home front, rebuild defenses, arrange logistics, and then bring the fight to the tyrants. What we must do is recognise that Rome is arrogance, intellectual tyranny, pride, and sin. The only thing to do is stick to bishops who refuse to fall under Rome. Anglicanism contains those bishops and, one day, Orthodoxy might be able to ally with us. This is a horrible, bloody spiritual war. Let's just be honest, and true to the end.
It means: ignore the ecumenical atmosphere and tell 'em they're totally wrong. Also, tell them that until they admit their novelty and change their theology, there will always be schism in Christendom. We've been taking too much crap from them. That's all. Be proud to be an Anglican. We have a liberty of conscience which is biblical and won for us by Christ. Roman Catholics are still oppressed by the Law, even if it's a new one.
But why? Why do they need to hear that from you? You seem to think of them as some kind of evil enemy, and that is not the Anglican position. This board seems to have taken a very ultra-Protestant, very anti-Catholic turn since I was last here. What's that all about? Whatever happened to all the Anglo-Catholics?
Frankly, I think the majority-Anglican position here is wrong. We are tied to the Scripture, the Creeds, and the Councils. On anything else, Anglicans can believe what they want. Plenty of Anglicans viewed Roman(ism) as an enemy, and it certainly has committed many evils in its day. Sorry, we converts tend to get passionate. We object to Anglo-Catholicism's very existence. Anglo-Catholics tend not to reject us totally, so there's a natural gap of conviction. We are fanatical about everyone being Protestant... but they're not fanatical about everyone being Anglo-Catholic, so they left. It's simply natural selection. Anyway, having novenas, rosaries, incense, prayers to/for the dead, vestments, etc., do not make one Catholic. That is the fraud that has been perpetrated in Anglican rhetoric for the last 150 years. Catholicism is fidelity to the ancient faith under a valid bishop. Nothing else defines it.
The Orthodox have an unfortunate confidence in what they call Holy Tradition. For them, the sacred adjective may be applied to hearsay just as much as to the crucifixion or resurrection. Lip-service is hardly even paid to the Scriptures,. For the Orthodox, the divine scriptures are mostly an afterthought or a liturgical book. Of the 10 or 15 Orthodox I've met from across the globe, none read their Bible, nor were familiar with the most basic stories in it. The most familiar description of Scripture in the Orthodox Apologetics circuit is "a letter from God to the Church". It is relegated to the same status as writings on the Essence & Energies of God, and as Councils. There's also a puzzling attitude in the Orthodox communion which treats Gregory of Palamas (14th century) as a Father equal to Chrysostom. Holy Tradition is all-pervading, and "what I say must be true because I am merely repeating the Holy Tradition". Imagine the Papal enshrining of infallible "Sacred Tradition", make it unfalsifiable, magnify it one-hundred fold, and you have Orthodox Holy Tradition. Finding icons which stream myrrh is treated as the be-all, end-all moment of Orthodox spiritual life. When you see an icon, bow twice, kiss it, and bow again - and then you will have completed the height of all that is to be expected of lay-people. Light your candles, venerate your icons, ask the Theotokos' prayers to save you, and you'll be alright. It's the worst aspects of Romanism piled into one big mess. All that is just my personal experience and opinion, of course.
My question was rhetorical, Consular. I just find odd, although historically understandable, that some Protestants have the most sharp criticisms of Roman Catholicism on hand but then they're conspicuously silent regarding the Eastern Orthodox.