Anglican church help

[BjBarnett]

Good evening my brethern in Christ :)

I wish to learn more about the Anglican/Episcopal churches. Can someone help me with a link to the history of the churches? I also have a few questions... Do you guys ask saints to pray for you?
Is it widely accepted to have women priest?
Do you believe in the true presents of Christ in the Eucharist?
Do you believe that everyone has a chance to be saved or do you believe that some are elected and some are not?

and last but not least...

Are you willing to convert to Catholicism? ;) jk on that one lol :)

[pmcleanj]

Answering your questions backwards...

Are you willing to convert to Catholicism? ;) jk on that one lol :)

No. We are Catholic.

You are entitled within your own community to define an us-and-them rule where "Catholic" means just those in communion with Rome, and "protestant" means everyone else. That is not our usage, nor the usage modelled in our Book of Common Prayer.

I know you were only joking, but having had your joke, you need to listen now, as well. A Baptist may define "Christian" as only those who accept literal inerrancy, and consider you to be "non-Christian". However, outside of their own closed circle, that would be offensive. Your usage of "Catholic" in the exclusive sense is offensive in precisely the same way.

That being said, Anglicans don't take offense easily. In fact, even some of us -- mistakenly, I think, but each is entitled to his own decision -- use the word "Catholic" to refer to that portion of the Catholic Church that is in communion with Rome. That is simply because the cultural norm -- the language drift, as it were -- has become to use "Catholic" as a denomination name rather than as a descriptor of the Church. That doesn't mean that we've abandoned the true meaning of Catholic as "universal" (and including us); it simply means that we usually go along with the language of the people.

"Going along" is a well-rooted Anglican custom. We have a history of cross-cultural worship. Remember, the British Isles that spawned anglican Catholicism were the last stopping-place on the trans-Europe invasion route. The Celtic people, pressed up against the Atlantic with no-where to go, still had their remnant of culture when Christianity arrived and flowed into that Celtic context. The Angles brought their culture, and Christianity flowed into that. The Normans brought their culture -- and their expectation of conformity and establishment -- and Christianity even managed to flow into that. (There is a hidden irony in that slightly humourous statement: I am implying -- as I truly believe -- that establishment is an impediment to true Christianity rather than a desirable condition). In that great mix of cultures and understandings of what it means to be Christian, the Church couldn't afford *not* to understand other perspectives.

Hence the answers to your remaining questions:

Can someone help me with a link to the history of the churches?


Try this one: http://www.holyspiriterie.org/history.html


Do you guys ask saints to pray for you?


Some of us do, and some of us don't. We believe in the Communion of Saints. That doesn't mean we have to talk to them. Some Anglicans think asking saints to pray for them is inappropriate, but most simply make the decision for themselves.


Is it widely accepted to have women priest?

It is in some places, and not in others. It's unexceptional in Canada and the United States except in a very few diocese.



Do you believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist?
Yes. We don't necessarily believe that the mechanism is "transubstantion" per se, although some Anglicans do. For the most part we're willing to leave the mechanism up to God.



Do you believe that everyone has a chance to be saved or do you believe that some are elected and some are not?

This can only be answered with the beautiful words of the relevant Article (an excellent example of the well-known "Anglican waffle" ;) ):
PREDESTINATION to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, He hath constantly decreed by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they be made like the image of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity.
As the godly consideration of Predestination and our Election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feeling in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation or into wretchlessness of most unclean living no less perilous than desperation.
Furthermore, we must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth in Holy Scripture; and in our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expressly declared unto us in the word of God.

[Colabomb]

Good evening my brethern in Christ :)

I wish to learn more about the Anglican/Episcopal churches. Can someone help me with a link to the history of the churches? I also have a few questions... Do you guys ask saints to pray for you?
Is it widely accepted to have women priest?
Do you believe in the true presents of Christ in the Eucharist?
Do you believe that everyone has a chance to be saved or do you believe that some are elected and some are not?

and last but not least...

Are you willing to convert to Catholicism? ;) jk on that one lol :)Do you believe that everyone has a chance to be saved or do you believe that some are elected and some are not?

This depends on which Anglican you ask.

The Early Anglican Church had some Calvinistic tendencies. BUT, today it varies. I personally am not a Calvinist, but I know that there are Calvinists in Anglicanism.

Is it widely accepted to have women priest?

This is where the Traditionalist in me comes out.

In ECUSA, there are women "priests". I think there are in the Church of England, and in the Canadian Anglican Church as well, but I am not sure.

But, this does not speak for Anglicanism as a whole. The Anglican Church in Africa, is very Traditional and stand against it strongly.

There are Churches such as my group (the REC) as well, that are against the "ordination" of women.

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Of course, there are those of us who have no truck with predestination. The Articles are not binding.

There is seldom an Anglican "Line" on something. The Anglican church is home to a lot of people for whom a propositional approach to faith is not the primary one.

[Polycarp1]

I think it was KennySe over on OBOB who pointed out that the legal name of the church in communion with John Paul II, Bishop of Rome and Patriarch of the West, is "the Catholic Church" -- and that "Roman Catholic" is offensive to them. (I pointed out that there might be occasions when discussions warrant its use, as in "true Roman Catholics, as opposed to Old Catholic Churches and other schismatics" or the point which pmcleanj makes above, that we Anglicans are full-fledged members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, regardless of what a given polemicist in communion with Rome might have to say about it. (Please note that most ["Roman"] Catholics are not the sorts of polemicists I'm referring to here.)

"Catholic" is a usage that we proudly claim, because we are in fact preserving the Historic Episcopate and the Apostolic Succession, the sacramental ministry of the early church, and the faith once given to the Apostles. We cannot object to the "Romanists" (not intended as insulting, but as a necessary clarification) using "Catholic" as their specifier, any more than we have a problem with Lutherans using "Evangelical" or even the usage of the gathering of [Roman] Catholic bishops in America being termed the "Episcopal Conference"! ;)

As for the women priests issue, the truth is somewhere in midstream. Many traditionalists, including Colabomb's church and, as he notes, many African Anglicans, hold to the tradition that only men can be validly ordained to the priesthood. However, most "Western" Anglicans -- CoE, ECUSA, the Anglican Churches of Canada and I believe Australia, etc. -- ordain women, I believe validly and licitly and to the greater glory of God. My own rector is a scholarly woman, wife to her associate rector; she was called, and by mutual agreement of the clergy couple and the vestry, he was later hired as her associate in a team ministry.

Invocation of saints, by the way, is a matter for personal choice in the Anglican communion -- AFAIK, there is no church which forbids it, and no national church which enjoins it as something one must or ought to do (there are a few parishes here and there where the rector will teach it as such).

As discussed at great length in a number of places in this and other forums, we hold to the Orthodox doctrine regarding the Real Presence -- it's a holy mystery which the church reverently proclaims, without attempting to formally define how it happens. Any given Anglican is probably free to accept or reject transubstantiation or any other explanation ("probably" because there may be a few people who have voluntarily joined groups which require subscription to the polemic stand of the Articles of Religion on it).

And let's put in large and bold letters Karl's comment:
There is seldom an Anglican "Line" on something. The Anglican church is home to a lot of people for whom a propositional approach to faith is not the primary one.

This is so vitally important to the concept of Anglicanism that it's almost worth making a sticky on its own. Unlike most "confessional" faiths and the Holy Tradition of Orthodoxy and the Magisterium of [Roman] Catholicism, we do not prescribe beliefs beyond acceptance of the Scriptures, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the efficacy of the two Gospel sacraments, and the Historic Episcopate as mandatory tenets which everyone must subscribe to. Being an Anglican is being willing to follow Jesus Christ according to your own best understanding of what He is calling you to be and to do, within the format of participating in a tradition handed down across centuries, simultaneously always kept the same and always made new. A former rector had a sign over his desk which read "Jesus came to take away our sins -- not our minds!"

[pmcleanj]

Of course, there are those of us who have no truck with predestination. The Articles are not binding.
The Articles are not only non-binding; many of them are a great deal less prescriptive than they look at first glance.

The first paragraph on this one seems to come down solidly in support of predestination. Yet I think even those of us who find the Calvinist statements on predestination rather unbelievable, will agree with the gist of this paragraph: that God's purpose is everlasting life, and that those who receive everlasting life from God's hand receive it by God's grace, mercy, and power.

The second paragraph, though, seems to condemn the doctrine as being the Devil's tool in discouraging those who do not have a present experience and awareness of being a recipient of everlasting life from God's hand.

And the third paragraph says, "well, you read the Bible and try to figure it out."

I find it fascinating to try to imagine the debates, discussion, and moral wrestling that led to the wording and inclusion of this Article.

[pmcleanj]

We cannot object to the "Romanists" (not intended as insulting, but as a necessary clarification) using "Catholic" as their specifier, any more than we have a problem with Lutherans using "Evangelical"

Actually, if Evangelical Lutherans used "Evangelical" with the understanding that they are the *only* evangelicals, then yes, I would have a problem with that. The Church of Christ uses "Christian" as their ideonomy, but we generally discourage them using it in an exclusive sense outside of their own community.

One of the primary reasons that Catholics who are in communion with Rome object to using a modifier with the term "Catholic" is that:

It is a way of denying the universality of the Catholic Church. At the same time, I think it lends a false credibility to other churchs. For example, since we know there is a universal church, and the "Roman Catholic" church is just a part of that universal church. There must be other legitimate parts also.

Well, except for the word "false" describing the credibility of other churches, isn't that precisely what we believe? That the Catholic Church (the denomination) is not the Catholic Church (Christ's mystical body, which is the whole company of all faithful people)? That the "Roman Catholic" church is just a part of that universal church? That there are other legitimate parts also?

The Anglican church refers to itself as "Anglican" for practical secular matters, because it gives clarity. But if you read through the 1662 Prayer book, you won't find any references to the "Anglican" church in any worship or doctrinal context, only to "the Church", or "the Catholic Church". Within our corporate spiritual lives, this is *our* ideonomy.

Outside of our own communion, most people seriously do not realize that we do define ourselves as Catholic. When they hear that we understand ourselves as "catholic" they frequently fall back quickly into a "but not real Catholic" understanding. That discounting of our catholicity trivializes our fundamental understanding of what the Church really is. Until such visitors actually make the effort to understand how we define the words we use, they really cannot hear the answers we make to their honest inquiries.

[jukesk9]

Invocation of saints, by the way, is a matter for personal choice in the Anglican communion -- AFAIK, there is no church which forbids it, and no national church which enjoins it as something one must or ought to do (there are a few parishes here and there where the rector will teach it as such).

I have a good friend who's Episcopalian and I've read some of his literature and have always remembered this:

Article xxii.—"The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons (de indulgentiis), worshipping (de veneratione) and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing (res est futilis) vainly (inaniter) invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant (contradicit) to the Word of GOD."

This is from the 39 Articles of Religion which is approved by the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America. So if the Episcopal Church in the U.S. condemns asking saints to pray for us, how can a member of that church then ask saints to pray for them? Are the 39 Articles binging on any Anglican? Thanks.

[PaladinValer]

The 39 Articles of Religion were made when Calvinists were trying to push their influence in the Church (because the Anglican Church wasn't "pure enough;" because we were "too papist" [a load of rubbish]). For a short time, they succeeded, but the faithful prevailed and reestablished the Church to its original state.

The 39 Articles are a part of our history, but that's it. They haven't been binding for a long, long time.

[Polycarp1]

The Articles of Religion are among the historical documents of the church. So are the Athanasian Creed, Acta V of Chalcedon, the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, and numerous other things. They are guidance against extremism in any view -- in this case, against making devotion to saints a matter which eclipses a focus on Christ and His redeeming work. They are not doctrinally binding on Anglicans except to the extent that a given Anglican feels them in his conscience to be so. Beyond that, what Paladin Valer said goes for me as well.

[jukesk9]

Thank you guys for answering my question. God bless!

[PaladinValer]

I should point out however that some of the Articles are still excellent, valid positions of our church. The Article that deals with our belief in the Real Presence of the Christ in the Eucharist, for example, is a mainstay that shall never go away.

Others are still partially valid, such as the Article that deals with the Canon; there's a large number of Anglicans, especially High Churchers like myself, that hold the Deuterocanon as fully inspired like you Catholics, and if not all of us, a large number of that group also accepts the Orthodox-recognized Deuterocanonical books as well as fully inspired.

To give an Article that is definitely no longer binding is the one that state's the pro-predestination position. We are not Calvinists but catholic Protestants and I would guess that 99% of us find the idea of predestination a little uncaring and even a little heterodox for our tastes.