This is a question intended for the traditionalist/conservative Anglicans. Many trads think that Lambeth 1998 and the disregard of Resolution 1.10 was the point where everything started to go wrong. Fact of the matter is that Lambeth 1930 contradicts Lambeth 1920 on the issue of contraception. Before Lambeth 1930 you've also had various people who started to reject biblical inerrancy, which resulted in the idea that the Bible is a fallible book. Many ACNA members I've encountered on Facebook seem to think that support of abortion and contraception is a common sense position which can be reconciled with sacred scripture. I would like to know whether there are traditionalist Anglicans who actually go all the way back to the classic, orthodox exposition of the Anglican faith.
Individually: yes. As a collective church, I am not aware of any that has repudiated these teachings in their Marriage Canons. And I don't think that is the best approach to the issue. It's a matter for pastoral teaching and individual counseling. A couple of recent treatments of the subject: https://northamanglican.com/contraception-and-lambeth-a-proposal/ https://northamanglican.com/an-anglican-pastoral-theology-of-contraception/
Important topic. The way we personally move past Lambeth 1930 is by further catechesis and explanation of what the mistake committed by Lambeth 1930. This won’t be accomplished by legal fiat: as we know despite Humanae Vitae most Roman Catholics support abortion and contraception. So this is a battle of catechesis, not “what was the latest legal ruling.” That being said, I don’t know of a single ACNA person who supports abortion. This would be an extremely rare position in the ACNA world. We participate in the Marches for Life (even our bishops do), and we have powerful ministries like https://anglicansforlife.org/ with hundreds of chapters around the country. Contraception is still something we all need to come together within the Church and finish hashing out.
I am not 100% against contraception's. I am against the way it is currently used in society and those within the church. It should be used, not to make one sterile, and self sterilization is a sin, but it should be used with the advice of a priest to, if it going to be used. As for my wife and we don't don't use it.
Are you supportive of the idea that doctrine can take a different meaning within the timeframe of 10 years? How can contraception be a major sin in 1920, but by 1930 you have exceptions which didn't exist prior to that Lambeth Conference?
True. Though you have to wonder as a traditionalist. If one point is assailable (i.e. contraception), then so are all the others which were condemned as major sin.
I think the problem for religious people is the relentless march of technology. At some point fairly soon it is going to be possible to gestate infants outside of a mother's body ("test tube babies" were only the beginning), and gene-editing techniques are going to blur the line between a "parent" and a mere "genetic donor". There may be a day not far off when the conception, gestation, and birth of babies will be accomplished completely without the sexual act even taking place, or even requiring "parents". This is the future we should fear -- a future where children are commodities, not much different than any other form of livestock. I've long thought that opposition to abortion and being "pro life" isn't going to be enough -- we need to positively advocate for the family as an essential building-block of a civilized society. Infants and children must be understood to be more than just raw material for the next adult generation; they are persons, image-bearers of God. Having children is one of those milestone events that ushers a person into actual adulthood; likewise children must have parents as their first teachers and caregivers. We must be pro family and not just "pro life".
Some of the questions raised by hypothetical advances in technology are indeed uncomfortable in their implications. At the same time, I am considerably more optimistic about the long-term prospects of the family, for (at least) 2 reasons. I don't think some of these things are as "just around the corner" as some popular science fiction would have us believe. Such advances in technology would have to clear enormous technical, ethical, legal, and financial hurdles, to become a reality. If the family as we know it is something that evolved gradually and naturally over the eons, that means that all attempts at an alternative were eliminated by natural selection millennia prior to the beginning of recorded human history. That means that attempts to voluntaristically override it now through technology will almost certainly backfire. The Soviets, for example, tried to abolish the family as a unit in the early days of Bolshevik rule, and it only took a few years for the effort to be recognized as an unmitigated disaster and reversed.
As an Anglican whose jurisdiction has been free of the Anglican Communion since 1863, I neither need to accept nor reject Lambeth 1930; it's largely irrelevant to me.
Free Church of England and Reformed Episcopal Church are not generally considered part of the Continuing Anglican movement.
Only if I already assumed a definition of Anglican which required communion with Canterbury. Given that this is not at all how I use that term, then it would be ridiculous to assume such a definition. I don't need +Cantuar's permission to be an Anglican.
I'm a member of the Free Church of England, which, like its American counterpart, the Reformed Episcopal Church, left their respective national Anglican jurisdictions in the 19th Century. Generally the term "Continuing Anglican" refers to those who left in the second half of the 20th Century, and, under that definition, I would not be included.
Anglican Realignment The FCE has been involved in the realignments within the Anglican Communion. In 2009 the Church was represented at the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (UK & Ireland), the local expression of the GAFCON movement inaugurated the previous year in Jerusalem. In October 2013, the Bishop Primus John Fenwick attended the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON 2) in Nairobi. He has been consulted in the restructuring of GAFCON UK (the successor body to the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (UK & Ireland)) under the leadership of Bishop Andy Lines, the ACNA Missionary Bishop endorsed by the GAFCON Primates. In February 2016, Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, signed an instrument declaring the Anglican Church in North America to be in full communion with the Free Church of England, and recognising 'their congregations, clergy, and sacraments, while pledging to work together for the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ and the making of his disciples throughout the world'. Archbishop Beach's declaration was ratified by the Provincial Council of the ACNA in June 2016. In June 2017 Archbishop Beach attended the annual Convocation of the Free Church of England and a special service to mark the 90th anniversary of the union of the original Free Church of England with the UK branch of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Also in 2017 the Free Church of England hosted three 'Anglican Unity Fora' in an attempt to bring together orthodox Anglicans in a common witness in the UK. That now continues under the umbrella of the re-structured GAFCON UK. In June 2018 a delegation of seven FCE members (including two bishops) attended GAFCON III, in Jerusalem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Church_of_England
Pork is advertised as "the other white meat." Perhaps the FCE, ACNA, REC, etc. might be known as "the other Anglicans." Just kidding.
I think in fairness we all have to recognise a change in the use of the term Anglican. For some time it referred to those who were members of Churches part of the Anglican Communion, and normally expressed in the terms of 'in communion with Canterbury'. There is however now a significant group of Churches whose history tradition and liturgy owe much to the Church of England and the Book of Common Prayer, who uphold Episcopal Governance through the historic episcopate, uphold the Holy Scriptures both Old and New Testament, are faithful in administering the Dominical Sacraments, and honour Ancient Creeds and sacred tradition as understood in the Ecumenical Councils of the first 500 years AD. I believe our division is a scandal and a shame, yet I do not have a need to find fault. In 1832 Thomas Arnold declared 'the Church of England as it is today, no human power can save' and the same might be said today of the Anglican Church in and out of communion. Ultimately we must find our unity in Christ, rather than the focus on the things which divide us.
Excellent points Botolph, and I agree with you. The time of alignment with Canterbury is probably coming to an end, since Canterbury came to be captured by hostile forces. I mean, after all it never had the promise of infallibility. But this our flexibility is a strength, not a weakness, because the fact is, any Province of Diocese can be captured, including Rome regardless of what they wished were the case. But in their case they can never disentagle from it, while our Primates can rally around a new locus of unity instead, and continue to preach the Apostolic faith to the world unimpeded.