Hi all, First, I know my username and avatar look slightly trollish - I want to assure you I'm not anything like, I just did it for some personal privacy online, no gender, name reveal etc. I had a look through the rules before joining and I can appreciate them. I'm not a Christian, but I am British and my heritage is the Anglican Church, to which masses I went and enjoyed. I'm not here to proselytise, preach, argue, or otherwise disrupt you. I have listed my religion as 'n/a' even though I have one and I believe in God, I just don't consider my beliefs personally relevant to the discussions here. If I'm welcome as a non-Christian, I'd love to be able to ask some questions about your religion, to explore the history and so on, without needless debate and disrespect. Thanks, Elmo.
I'm happy with the faith I have, but I love exploring religions. I've come to appreciate Anglicanism as my cultural heritage more as I've become older, but I have also many Christian friends with whom I discuss these topics. I'm actually finding it easier as an outsider, so to speak, now I have no dog in the race. I'm less emotive, less attached, and more open to just read what folks have to say. I'm in frequent discussions with a Catholic about this and although he's staunch in his faith, he's open to visiting one of his local Anglo-Catholic churches for Mass. I thought it may be beneficial to reinvigorate my understanding, this in mind.
You are welcome to hob-nob with us. I must say that you have piqued my curiosity, though. Having an Anglican 'heritage,' you probably know the gospel message, that God created all things and created the first man and woman in innocent, sinless perfection, but they fell into sin and now all humans sin, the wages of sin is death but God gifts those who believe in Christ's redemptive death and resurrection with saving grace and the indwelling Holy Spirit and sonship. You don't have to answer my question if you prefer your privacy, but I am really interested to know what part (or parts) of the gospel message you disbelieve? (After all, take a look at our 'retirement' package: eternal life in the presence of the wonderful Creator of the universe! )
Hello Elmo and welcome to this forum. You're most welcome as will be your questions. Could you please share your religion with us? It would help understand the perspective from which any of your questions come and help to give you relevant answers.
For those who are curious about my religion and my history with Anglicanism, @PDL @Rexlion and others. I am a Noahide. I've not been a Christian in years and at this stage have definitively abandoned it. I say this not to offend or seem dismissive, but this is my belief. I took an early interest in religion, specifically Christianity and specifically Anglican and Methodist branches as that is my 'mother church' so to speak. I gave it shot after shot til I was 21. I know that doesn't seem very old, but even after this I've continued, as you can see(!), asking questions and trying to engage in dialogue with Christians. In short, @Rexlion, my issue is that I simply find the Jewish arguments more persuasive. Ideally, that's as far as I'd like to go with this, since I'm already on another forum where I can debate Christians and others to my heart's content (and do so) - but I wanted a reprieve from that. I'm not in a very good place mentally, seeing how lonely my path is, and really have an interest in the history of what I am still emotionally attached to as 'my' church, as well as those discussions with the Catholic I mentioned earlier. Since we've been talking, we've exchanged a lot of thoughts and feelings about various Christian branches but mostly we discuss the AC and the RCC. It's been an interesting set of talks. I'm honestly just a bit lonely at times, though, and it's good to be around folks who are somewhat more on my wavelength than not. I've noticed this forum is pretty based, and that's hard to find these days. I came here with an eye to informative dialogue, which is why I'd ideally leave my faith out of it. I'm interested to know how this branch of Christianity sees and instructs itself, regardless what I think or believe. It's also been a welcome respite from watching different denominations go at each other and not really answer my questions in their haste to prove the other guy wrong. So, despite my religion, I'm not here to argue against the NT, the Gospel, the incarnation, xyz. I'm much more interested in what you personally believe about these things and why.
Oh yeah, I get it. I heard of Noahides a while back and read somewhat about the beliefs. About what are the numbers of adherents worldwide, any idea? Is the movement growing much?
It's very small, only in the low thousands, and basically nonexistent in Britain. Very small growth from what I can see.
Elmo, I welcome you here, as much as I can, because I am a pretty new member myself. I am an Anglican but a lot more liberal than most of the Anglican here I think. I have travelled a long spiritual path, from being raised an agnostic, through Buddhism and a guru and other experiments but somewhere along the line, Jesus became very important to me, so I was baptised in the RC church and was a cloistered Carmelite nun for years. I gave up on the RCC because we parted on several issues that were important to me, and I started attending the Anglican church at the beginning of this year. I am going to be received into the Anglican Communion this Saturday by our Bishop and I feel very comfortable and happy about this. God is in charge though, so what the future holds is entirely up to Him. I wish you all the best in your faith journey as well.
Thank you for sharing that information with us. I confess to have never heard of this before and know nothing about it. I do not think anyone would think that was your intent. You are free to choose your own religion. I feel from what you have written that you are quite restless and unable to find peace anywhere. You seem, from what you have written, to have moved around Christian churches a bit. I am uncertain how this has brought you to Noahidism. Is this forum the best place for you? You do not want to debate with Christians. If you have found Anglicanism to be wanting and may be found peace elsewhere why are you wanting to ask about Anglicanism? Haven't you been there? It sounds to me that what may be in order is finding a good spiritual director, if there is such a thing in Noahidism. For your more general mental health issues you can seek help from your GP. I note you live in England. So, at least you would get mental health support services free at the point of care from the NHS. However, they are understaffed and in high demand so waiting times can be lengthy. I will remember you in my prayers.
I was chatting with Jews, have always been fascinated with Judaism and eventually left Christianity in favour of it. Because I just enjoy dusicssuing religion, but especially my own cultural one. It's knowledge for knowledge's sake, really. There's much spirituality. My main problem is and always was lack of community - even in the church. Young folks in this country are overwhelmingly atheists (70%+). This is what makes me depressed and lonely.
@Elmo - finding a faith community can be very helpful if you are feeling lonely about your spirituality. One of the reasons I started attending church again at the beginning of this year was that I wanted to be around other spiritual people since my family are all agnostics. I have been fortunate in finding a community of like-minded Anglicans and this provides a lot of social as well as spiritual support for me. I hope you are equally fortunate in finding such a thing - ask God for His help, He has a better idea than we do what we need. Maybe find some Psalms that can express your feelings and recite these, they might help.