I have always been fascinated by language and words. Words are special. They enable interpersonal communication. They also enable the articulation of the intelligibility of the world. They are essential to our life as human beings. The Word we receive from God is also special. We speak of the Bible as God's Word. We also speak of Jesus as God's Word, His Logos, the Word-made-flesh through Whom the words of the Bible come alive. During Advent 2002 through Epiphany 2003 I had written a … [Read more...]
Ten Reasons to be Anglican/Episcopal (Part II)
What is the Anglican Way and why is it good? Part II The following series of short reflections relates closely to a series first put out in the precursor to the Anglican Way which was then known as The Mandate by The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon, in 1997 A M-R (The final five of ten reflections are included in this second post under this heading) 6 The Anglican Way looks to the Early Church perspective When asked to explain the foundation of the Anglican Way as a living … [Read more...]
Ten Reasons to be Anglican / Episcopal (part I)
What is the Anglican Way and why is it good? Part I The following series of short reflections relates closely to a series first put out in the precursor to the Anglican Way then known as The Mandate by The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon, in 1997 A M-R (The first five reflections are included in this post and the second five in Part II the post which follows) When you go online or search a directory for “churches” you soon find a bewildering assortment of names, types and denominations. As … [Read more...]
How Turkish was your Turkey? And how does your Turkey connect to the Prayer Book?
How Turkish was your Turkey? And even more important, how does your Turkey connect to your Prayer Book? (Be assured that it certainly does.) A M-R The modern day mass farmed turkey widely served in America at Thanksgiving (and very commonly in Britain on Christmas day where it has tended to supplant the goose) is not it seems a very direct descendant of the ‘small, bright- eyed’ turkeys that were probably served at the famous initial Thanksgiving meals initiated by English settlers in … [Read more...]
The Filioque Clause and the underlying theological issues – An Article by The Revd. Dr. Daniel Newman
Recent days have seen the publication of an historic Agreed Statement between Anglican and Oriental Orthodox theologians on the Procession and Work of the Holy Spirit. The statement was originally signed a year ago the previous October after lengthy discussions by members of the Anglican Oriental-Orthodox International Commission (AOOIC) but was only published at this year’s meeting of AOOIC, which took place in Lebanon. … [Read more...]
PART II of A Response to ACNA’s Proposed 2019 Prayer Book * by Drew N. Keane
By Drew Nathaniel Keane (*This original article was first published online on Covenant, the weblog of The Living Church to whom grateful thanks is most warmly extended) This first section of the article (published here earlier) covered the proposals for Morning Prayer, Baptism.This section now looks at the proposals for Holy Communion and the Lectionaries in the forthcoming ACNA Prayer Book By way of introducing this second Section of the original Article it … [Read more...]
Anglican Way, Fall Edition (Print)
The Society is pleased to be able to release the online version of the Fall Edition of the Print Magazine featuring “The Articles of Religion,Part III,’ The Revd. Gavin G.Dunbar “Beyond Imagination: The True Meaning of Creation”, Dr.Paul Julienne ‘Is the Prayer Book an Evangelistic Liturgy?” The Revd. Gavin G.Dunbar “Justification by Faith in Anglican History” Bishop FitzSimons Allison “A Response to ACNA’s Proposed Prayer Book 2019” Drew Nathaniel Keane And more…… Please note the … [Read more...]
Justification by Faith in Anglican History
By Bishop FitzSimons Allison (This article comprised one of the Papers given at this year’s Prayer Book Society Conference in Savannah in February, 2018) Part I There are an unlimited number of ways that the biblical and PrayerBook teachings on Justification can be distorted or denied. However, they all share one factor, sin. God’s righteousness, Luther thought, was the righteousness that condemned the unrighteousness and Luther knew himself to be a sinner and thus God’s … [Read more...]
A Response to ACNA’s Proposed 2019 Prayer Book * (PART I)
By Drew Nathaniel Keane (*This article was first published online on Covenant, the weblog of The Living Church) The Anglican Church in North America has been preparing a new revision of the Book of Common Prayer for several years. Its Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force began gathering feedback once working drafts were made available for use in 2013. The task force is near the end of the work, and the texts now available can be found … [Read more...]
Is the Prayer Book Evangelistic ? – Part I
Is the historic Prayer Book an evangelistic liturgy? Can a church that uses one of the classical Prayer Books (England 1662, USA 1928, Canada 1962) fulfill the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations”? By the Rev. Gavin Dunbar It is a mark of our time that many Anglican and Episcopalian Christians would answer these questions in the negative. The Prayer Book may be good for some things - but not evangelism. So runs the current wisdom. So prevalent is this view, … [Read more...]
A New Prayer Book Emerges:
It is not just TEC that has been looking at Prayer Book revision: ACNA is about to launch a completely new Prayer Book of its own. A.M-R Recent months have seen much attention focused on the plan for a “comprehensive revision” of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church, although in the end, the General Convention of this summer – to the relief of many who feared just how radical the results might have been-- decided not to pursue this option but instead to develop a range … [Read more...]
Why have so few Middle East Christians been accepted as refugees?
It is a startling fact that not a single Christian has been accepted by the United Kingdom among the 1,112 refugees from Syria resettled in the country in the first three months of 2018. This prompts some wider questions and reflections . But in regard to this particular statistic, it seems that just four Christians were even put forward by United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) for consideration by the UK where in the end only Muslims were accepted. This data only … [Read more...]
Two Responses to the TEC Marriage Task Force proposals
The Revd. Canon Jordan Hylden of the Diocese of Dallas and a member of the Marriage Task Force has written his own powerful response to the latest proposals and this is set out below. The Task Force records that it had sought input from all thirty nine Provinces of the Anglican Communion over a period of five weeks and evidently was able to obtain seven of which it recorded only one as positive (from the Episcopal Church of Scotland, though it was stressed that in regard to that … [Read more...]
Proposals from the Task Force on Marriage to the coming TEC General Convention
TASK FORCE ON THE STUDY OF MARRIAGE proposals to the TEC General Convention 2018 It is important to note that the first proposed resolution from this Task Force (A085) if approved would constitute a first reading of a set of amendments to the 1979 Prayer Book itself, which means that if the General Convention approves a second reading in 2021, the changes will change the Prayer Book, and this will be so quite aside from anything undertaken or proposed by way of the … [Read more...]
After GAFCON III – Whither Lambeth 2020 & Whither the Communion?
A further personal reflection on some of the implications flowing from GAFCON III in Jerusalem A M-R The GAFCON conference was a thoroughly upbeat and joyful event of unprecedented scale that demonstrated most powerfully the rising organizational capacity of the movement ---and the consequent importance for Anglicanism of whether or not it is enabled to see its future, in the long-term, within the Communion. There was a deeply positive atmosphere with huge goodwill among those … [Read more...]
Anglicanism’s costly vocation and the fight to belong.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre From Jerusalem: A Personal Reflection on GAFCON 2018 and its Strategic Challenges If anyone were to read the headline “2000 aesthetes gather to consider their emotional attraction to Anglicanism” it is unlikely any of those at GAFCON would recognise themselves. Surely this would describe some other more High Church congress of priestly types adorned with quantities of lace and such gorgeous robes as to be in breach of the cautionary … [Read more...]
A Letter from Bishop Mark Lawrence after the Supreme Court Decision Re: South Carolina
Feast of St. Basil June 14, 2018 Dear People of God, “Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:7 I leave tomorrow for the Global Anglicans Future Conference in Jerusalem. It is a gathering of global leaders—Primates, Bishops, Priests and lay leaders—from around the Anglican Communion. I will be attending not only as a bishop of the Anglican Church in North America, but, more importantly, … [Read more...]
From Clubs to Communion: in a Different League ?
It is said that the Metropolitan Club in New York founded in 1891 –with J.P. Morgan as its first President –was launched in consequence of outrage that a certain other Club had failed to elect particular gentlemen to membership. In the world of gentlemen’s social clubs it is clear thus that, in the case of difficulty, one answer is simply to set up a new one, even if the more recent clubs tend to be looked down upon by the older or more exclusive ones. (A mischievous … [Read more...]
Jerusalem and GAFCON III
St George's Cathedral Jerusalem: A view looking towards the Nave from the Quire A Special Evensong was held today in the Cathedral for those coming to Jerusalem to attend GAFCON with Archbishop Suheil Dawani the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem and Bishop Michael Lewis of Cyprus and the Gulf as well as the GAFCON Bishops This coming week sees the convening of the Third Global Anglican Futures Conference which for the second time is being held in Jerusalem ten years after the first … [Read more...]
Uganda Martyrs Observance in Uganda 2018
Thousands of Christians from Uganda and neighbouring countries are arriving this weekend in Namugongo for special services to commemorate the Ugandan Martyrs. This speaks to the astonishing history of Christian Martyrdom in the country extending from those beheaded or burned alive in his court by Mwanga II, King of Buganda, who also had killed Bishop James Hannington (3 September 1847 – 29 October 1885) an English Anglican missionary who was the first Anglican bishop of East Africa; … [Read more...]
Drawing a line: From Gallicanist Anglicans to an Anglicanist Pope?
For the Anglican eWay of June 2nd 2018 Manifestly, through most of its existence, the Church of England both before and after the Reformation has been shaped and influenced by developments in the Continental Christianity of the West and thus Catholicism and the Reformers. In recent times both Anglican and Catholic liturgical approaches have been influenced by parallel intellectual currents, as the post-Vatican II Eucharistic texts amply demonstrate. But looked at … [Read more...]
What is Common Prayer? – From the Archives – by the late Dr Peter Toon
What is Common Prayer? The word “common” is used in all kinds of ways, and so what do Anglicans mean by the word “common” when it is associated with public prayer and worship? Since we are referring to the worship of our Creator and Redeemer, Almighty God, we can dismiss quickly the popular meaning of “common” as that which is ordinary, undistinguished or even of inferior quality. The texts of the services and rites used before God to address him are surely intended to be of high not low … [Read more...]
Persecution of Christians: Recent Overview Reports detail a deteriorating picture
“In terms of the numbers of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed and their impact, it is clear that the persecution of Christians is today worse than at any time in history.” So began the presentation by Aid to the Church in Needof their most recent global overview report on Christian persecution Persecuted & Forgotten? – A Report on Christians Oppressed for their Faith. This report went on to point out that not only are Christians more persecuted … [Read more...]
Simnel: the (considerable) history behind a cake.
Easter and Simnel: The history behind a cake The history of the Simnel cake is much controverted, but what is clear is that it has come to have a close association with Easter and the Season that follows Easter Day itself as well as Mothers Day This cake certainly contains an abundance of things that people have often given up during Lent and is a very fine cake indeed, replete with almond paste covering and eleven balls of the same almond paste on top (representing the Apostles other … [Read more...]
God Science & Humanity Conference Program details
Having just concluded our three day Annual Conference for 2018 in Savannah we were delighted to announce the program for our next event: God Science and Humanity 10th February 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Hosted in partnership with the Church of St. Francis, PotomacFollowed by Evening Prayer(With a Sandwich lunch included for those who registered) Program 9.30- 10.00 Arrivals and registration Introductions and overview of the dayThe Revd. Fr Mark … [Read more...]