The Consecration of Stewart Rich III -- First Bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest - ACNA (Anglican Church in North America). Sent to me by a discerning reader of this blog... undoubtedly to be found many places by now... hopefully in the LCMS is NOT one of them....
19 comments:
Unholy crack-the-whip for the laity, and the a-spiritual Macarena for the clergy. Lord save us.
One wonders what they are dancing for since, as these are EPISCOPALIANS and not ANGLICANS. they are known to have departed from the true Faith once delivered to the Apostles. How truly Our Lord has said, "The way to destruction is broad, and many are they who are on it...." I guess one can dance one's way there just as easily....
What the video shows is shameful and demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of the solemn significance of the Consecration of a Bishop. The clergy in this video are worse than the laity, and are leading the sheep astray.
Let me offer a few words of clarification. Pastor Peters has not identified which group of Anglicans this is, but I did some checking elsewhere, and think this is the ACNA, Anglican Church in North America. To the best of my knowledge (which is certainly not complete), the Episcopal Church has no Diocese of the Upper Midwest, but I think the ACNA does have such.
The meanings of the words "Anglican" and "Episcopal" have become blurred in the US over the past 40 years. Let me layout a little bit of background..
Many years ago, "Anglican" referred almost exclusively to the Church of England, or to the international Anglican Communion under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many countries had "The Anglican Church of (name of country)" such as The Anglican Church of Canada, The Anglican Church of South Africa, etc. The US was different in form, in that the Anglicans in the US were called The Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA).
In the '60s and '70s, things began to unravel in the ECUSA with false bishops such as Pike, Spong, Righter, etc. In 1976, a group of women were "ordained" in Philadelphia (an ultra vires act), which rocked the ECUSA badly. In 1979, ECUSA brought out the Book of Common Prayer 1979, intended to replace the BCP 1928. The '79 book is full of false doctrine and is no BCP in anything except the title. This further split the ECUSA. Urban Holmes, one of the chief assemblers of the 1979 book wrote a scholarly article explaining how they had hoodwinked the ECUSA into accepting false doctrine; he was clearly an agent of the devil.
Since the late '70s, there have been several groups leave the ECUSA to form what is called Continuing Anglicanism. These groups uniformly use the term "Anglican" to describe themselves, to differentiate themselves from Episcopalians. Some Episcopalians have also adopted the term Anglican, in an attempt to conceal their departure from the faith once delivered to the saints.
Thus, today, in the USA, the term Anglican usually (but not always) means those that have left ECUSA in order to hold to the traditional faith.
The ACNA is a group that have left ECUSA relatively recently, and they have brought many of the errors of ECUSA with them. They have not been able to settle where they stand on women's ordination, what prayerbook they will use, and many other important issues. They are relatively large, but they are also relatively weak because of their many internal differences.
Fr. D+
(Continuing) Anglican Priest
And the Anglican/ECUSA ship keeps sinking. Let them sink and die.i
Unknown: Let them know that the LCMS is an alternative!
Why do so many disaffected churchgoers from other denominations never, ever consider the LCMS as an alternative?
Dear Sir:
(1) My generations go back to 1812 in Canada, that is, Canadian Anglicans in and around Toronto.
(2) I have a seminary degree from an American Episcopal school.
(3) I use the BCP daily.
(4) The new ACNA, upon developing information, is essentially a non-Confessional mix: Anglicanobaptacostalistictractaholic affair. They can count me out. I am Confessionally Reformed (by reading, development and conviction), yet, with an old, but gently revised Book of Common Prayer.
This "is what it is."
Thank you for posting this. As an old school Anglican, you can count me out on this unseemly disorder.
Anonymous,
Most of the Anglicans/ECUSAs who even style themselves as conservatives still support women's ordination and agree with many points on Rome that would not be comfortable for the average LCMSer. Besides, the Anglicans, those who use the 1543 BCP, haven't stripped the Liturgy the way the Lutherans have.
They can always join the Anglican ordinariate. Better than being an LCMSer.
Isn't the ACNA the church body that Harrison was so excited to be in dialogues with? If this is typical for them, why do we bother, or why are we excited that we are bothering. Seems like a pretty great divide...
"The new ACNA, upon developing information, is essentially a non-Confessional mix: Anglicanobaptacostalistictractaholic affair."
But if the pastrix-infected ACNA opposes ordaining homosexuals, that absolves all sins and thus allows the Purple Palace to join in the ecumenical conga line, just like it does with the NALC and EECMY.
This remind me of another time when someone disapproved of some one praising God by dancing. 2 Samuel 6:12-23
Psalm 149:3
Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.
Since dancing has been specifically prescribed in Holy Scripture as a way to praise God. I would be quite hesitant to criticize this form or praise.
May be you should ask yourself if God has instructed us through the wholly scriptures to praise hymn this way why aren't you doing it?
mark...
What makes you think that we don't? We just don't do it during the Liturgy.
As I wrote elsewhere:
ACNA purports to ordain women, even if they leave the matter up to individual dioceses and "convocations" that constitute its membership, and even if they forbid woman bishops. That ought to be enough to give you guys pause.
Unknown at 10:36 am on 3 Oct said, "And the Anglican/ECUSA ship keeps sinking. Let them 'sink and die.""
What a loving, Christian attitude! (/sarc off). This sort off judgmental attitude is exactly what turns many people away from Lutheranism. Anybody there ever heard of "Love thy neighbor"? It is one thing to disagree, but it is quite another to wish evil on our neighbor. Judgmentalism has long been a major problem with Lutheranism, and this shows it in spades!!
In a world where secularism, marxism, and islamism are great threats to all Christians, this sort of mutual condemnation is most unfitting among Christian people
Fr. D+
(Continuing) Anglican Priest
Anonymous at 12:40 on 3 Oct asks, "Why do so many disaffected churchgoers from other denominations never, ever consider the LCMS as an alternative?"
This is a really good question, and one that the LCMS would do well to ponder. I was a member of the LCMS for many years, but I would not touch it today. It is narrow, inward looking, and judgmental regarding the rest of the world. Few people find those attributes attractive when they are looking for Jesus Christ. The ethnic identity of the LCMS also works against it; if you are not of German heritage, and a fifth generation member of the parish, you are very often only tolerated, and never really welcome in many LCMS parishes. I have moved around quite a bit in my life time (I'm an old man now, age 73) and I have been accepted in a few LCMS parishes, but only barely tolerated in many others (the WELS are even worse; I've been there also). My family and I founded a an LCMS parish in a small town in Wisconsin, but we finally left when the District office sent us a real goofball pastor, one who had just destroyed another parish. I would not go back to the LCMS today under any circumstances, although I have a great respect for its principles. It is the failure to be Christian that is a real turn-off.
People are searching for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not for ethnic purity. The narrow, clannish behavior of many LCMSers is a real turn-off for someone seeking Christ. For myself, I found beautiful, Christ-centered, liturgy in Anglicanism, and happily found a home there. It is not that Anglicanism has no problems; it most certainly does. But I have been very happy here for the past 20+ years. It has provided me a home in which I have been able to realize my calling to the priesthood that first came to me long ago, when I was in the LCMS. It is beautiful, humane, catholic, and reformed. I am home now, I am sure.
Fr. D+
Anglican Priest
Dr. D.
Are the imprecatory Psalms inspired or they unloving and un-Christian?
The video of the ACNA is indeed troubling. As Fr. D+ rightly points out, these "continuing Anglicans" contain many disparate groups. The one common theme is they left the ECUSA. The ACNA must make tough decisions on women's ordination, form of worship, etc.
However, I attend a conservative Anglican church - the Anglican Province of America (APA). There are other conservative Anglican bodies as well - the Anglican Church in America, the Anglican Catholic Church, etc. None of these continuing Anglican bodies are part of the ACNA. These conservative continuing Anglicans have much in common with the LCMS. Pastor Harrison should dialogue with these groups rather than the ACNA.
Like Fr. D+, I was a LCMS member for 30+ years. I think highly of the LCMS. But I was tired of the move toward Baptist/evangelical worship (drinking coffee during the service, no vestments, no historic liturgy, no religious art, video screens, etc.) I had to travel a large distance to attend an acceptable LCMS parish. Then I visited an Anglican Province of America parish near my home. What a delight - a consistent reverent liturgy; vestments; use of the church calendar; weekly Eucharist; bishops; and, in my opinion, sound theology. I know there are differences with the LCMS, but many (if not a majority) of the LCMS churches I have visited are no longer Lutheran anyway. The Anglican Province of America offers much of what I loved in the LCMS of my youth.
Again, the video of the Anglican gathering is disturbing. And I find it unacceptable. However, I could make a video of a LCMS parish where the "pastor" is on "stage" in his jeans and t-shirt, the drum set and electric guitar are his back drop, and folks hoot and holler during the "service." This LCMS service is equally unacceptable.
I wish Pastor Peters and other like minded clergy and laity well in their struggle to regain Lutheranism from the grasps of evangelicalism.
James
The LCMS is talking to the ACNA. We are not dating. We are talking. Why? Because they want to talk and we have some things to talk about. We would be talking to the ELCA if they wanted to talk with us. So do not rush to judge the LCMS for talking or make that out to be something more than it is.
While I appreciate those who have tried or left or judged from a distance the LCMS, I personally know of hundreds and hundreds of Pastors who are genuinely and authentically Lutheran in faith and practice. I never presumed to suggest and I do not think that confessional Lutheran Pastors and parishes are but a small minority. They are not -- or Harrison would not have been elected and re-elected! I am sorry that those who complain have not found these Pastors and parishes but I truly do know that they exist and have their names and addresses.
Finally I do not think it either helpful or beneficial to keep the focus on those who disdain the confessional Lutheran identity in theology and practice. NO CHURCH BODY is without aberrations, even in significant number. This is not to be overlooked or ignored but neither it is to dominate the way we see things in the churches. At the same time we must acknowledge and laud the faithful as well as acknowledge the unfaithful.
There are so many pentecostal and holiness churches and a number of African-American churches that worship in a lively and ecstatic way, and you are admonishing them. Because they go by the name Anglican? Do you admonish the African-American churches or the others I mentioned??
I may not have been clear in how I worded my post. I was expressing my dismay that you were admonishing the Anglicans, and wondering whether or not you admonished other branches of Christianity for their vivacious worship style. Sorry if my first comment reads awkwardly.
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