According to the traditional Prayer Book, all who are baptized are then to be confirmed by the Bishop (immediately or later) and then they become communicant members of the Church. Until Confirmed, though members of the invisible Body of Christ, they are not yet full members of the local, visible church.
Two different Liturgies
Read moreThe book is mainly about the shift of visible Christianity (Christendom) from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern-from Europe and America to Africa, Asia, and South America.
Read moreIn a Collect that is prayed each morning by thousands of traditional Anglicans, it is said of God not only that he is the author of peace but also that serving him is perfect freedom. The exact clause is: "whose service is perfect freedom."
Read moreThe text of these letters is displayed below. The first letter was sent to Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori and the second was sent to Rev. Canon Brian Grieves.
Oct 13, 2006 Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop-Elect The Episcopal Church Episcopal Church Center 815 Second Avenue New York, NY 10017
Rt. Rev. Schori:
Read more1. For 200 years leading theologians taught that the Bible supported slavery, segregation, and the subordination of women. The reason they got it wrong is that they were relying on Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (including appeals to "natural law," selective literalism, and proof-texting) and the scholastic theology of Francis Turretin instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Read moreThe process of answering will take not months but years. However, the process may be speeded up by actions taken, and advice given, by the so-called Instruments of Unity-The Primates' Meeting, The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Anglican Consultative Council and The Lambeth Conference of Bishops (due July 2008).
Read moreTo slaves:
‘Let them not long to be set free at the communal expense. Otherwise, they may be found to be slaves to their own desires.’ Ignatius c.105
To servants and masters:
‘Servants, when they have believed, should serve their fleshly masters the better. In the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, it says: “Servants, obey your fleshly masters with fear and trembling.”…
Regrettably this kind of teaching, which connects Baptism with the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and a sanctified and consecrated life flowing from this confession, with the sure hope of eternal life, is significant by its general absence from modern Anglican circles when and where Baptism is much emphasized.
Read moreForward in Faith: The current title of an organization that originated in 1977 in reaction to the Episcopal Church's decision the previous year to ordain women to the priesthood. Originally entitled "The Evangelical and Catholic Mission" it sought to bring together Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Protestant Episcopalians opposed to the ordination of women to the priesthood.
Read moreRight now in the Church of England one can get a taste of the emotion in this difference of mindset in the build-up to the future voting in General Synod as to whether women will be allowed by canon law to be consecrated bishops. But it is also felt very strongly in the USA on the one side by the traditional Continuers for whom "no female priest at the altar" seems to be a primary article of faith.
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