See the News Account below concerning the Lady Presiding Bishop of the American Church.

Once more the new Presiding Bishop has made it clear that her GOSPEL is much the same as that of the old-time Liberals who saw the task of the Church to cooperate with God in bringing the kingdom of God on earth in terms of the improvement of the conditions of mankind.

She ties it to the commitment made in Baptism by every Episcopalian to work for justice and peace and to affirm the dignity of all persons (of whatever kind and orientation).The Gospel is that God is LOVE and loves everyone and wants everyone in this world to reach their full potential and in so doing to spread love to others, for where human love is there is God as Love.

In her committment to the Millennium Development Goals of the UN as paths to the future kingdom of God on earth, she has something in common with the Global South Primates---who are committed to the Goals as bringing to the needy much of what they ought to have , BUT NOT as paths to the earthly kingdom of God. She will be able to share this concern with them when they all meet in Tanzania in Feb 07.

Will they be able to persuade her that the GOSPEL of the kingdom of heaven is initially and primarily about the way provided in Jesus Christ for sinful human beings to have a right relation to God [who is transcendent and gloriously alive and active], to have their sins forgiven, to be adopted as his chidlren by grace, and then to show by good works that they are truly born again and the children of God?

Will they be able to show her that God does not accept everyone as she or he is and does not affrm them as his child to be what she or he can be in the work of improving the lot of the human race. by loving one another!?

Will they be able to convert her to the apostolic message of the Gospel and to spreading this Gospel, while at the same time seeing good works in terms of compassionate caring as a necessary implication of Gospel commitment?

Will they be able to introduce her to the Lord Jesus Christ of the New Testament and to his Gospel and agenda?

WHERE ARE THE PRAYER MEETINGS where the LORD our God is being implored to send his Spirit upon the Primates when they meet in Tanzania, to renew them all, and to make Katherine into a woman with the message of the kingdom of heaven in her heart and on her lips?

Should we not organize prayer vigils to beseech His Majesty to visit his pastors in Tanzania? If the Primates can be revived and renewed then maybe there is hope for the Anglican Way!

drpetertoon@yahoo.com visit www.anglicanmarketplace.com

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Episcopal News Service
November 12, 2006

Presiding Bishop tells Executive Council to 'communicate the Good News'

House of Deputies president emphasizes 'accountability' in opening remarks

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[ENS] In her opening remarks to the meeting of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council November 12, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori set the group's work in the context of mission and ministry.

Executive Council members must "figure out how to communicate the Good News we know in this body" to the diverse communities in which the Episcopal Church exists, especially to those people who have not been touched by the gospel or who are not yet part of a faith community.

"We have remarkable opportunities to speak and do Good News to people who don't know what that means," she said.

Both she and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said they are committed to what Jefferts Schori called the "deed-based evangelism" personified in the church's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.

"We've got a long road and the journey begins today, and I am delighted that you're all here," she said.

Anderson, who is also the council's vice president, said that she sees "accountability" as a major challenge to both the House of Deputies during the time between General Conventions and to the Executive Council.

Full story and photographs:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_79621_ENG_HTM.htm

In reading a variety of recent statements by Anglican leaders in the generally liberal West/North and the generally conservative Global South, I found that the use of the word “Identity” was common. All seemed to think that the present crisis within (what used to be self-consciously) a Communion of Anglican Churches is a crisis of Identity. Of course, we all know that the presenting problem has been the innovation in sexual doctrine and practice favored by thousands in North American Anglicanism and rejected by millions globally. Yet underneath and surrounding this problem is the pressing question: Who are Anglicans? That is, what is their IDENTITY?

So I studied carefully the three major Anglican Reports of recent years—The Eames Report on Ordination, The Virginia Report on the nature of Communion, and The Windsor Report on the future of the Anglican Communion—in order to find out what they had to say about IDENTITY.

Following the example of the Introduction of The Windsor Report, and inspired by Dr Philip Turner, I also made a careful study of The Epistle to the Ephesians, which has much to teach us on Truth and Unity as “twins from conception.”

And I read many recent communiqués, statements, and position papers from a variety of sources—from the Primates’ Meeting to the writings of members of the Anglican Communion Institute.

Eventually I produced the 22,000 word essay, ANGLICAN IDENTITY. Keeping the Global Family together, as a booklet of 64 pages.

In it I offer a definition of “Anglican” which I hope will be taken seriously by those who compose and agree upon the content of the proposed “Anglican Covenant,” a means proposed by The Virginia Report to help bind together those Provinces who desire to be in a real Communion (rather than Federation) of Churches.

ANGLICAN IDENTITY is available from Monday, November 13 —for one copy go to www.anglicanmarketplace.com and for bulk orders (for use in study groups etc) call 1-610-490-0648. It is published by the Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. In difficulty call 1-800-PBS-1928

Any questions, please e mail thomascranmer2000@yahoo.com

One of my hopes is that the kind of proposals I make (which are not unique to me) can be a means not only of uniting most of the present “Federation” of Anglican Provinces (38), but also of bringing the Continuing Anglican Churches and other Extra-Mural Anglicans into the future, orthodox and stable Anglican Communion of Churches. Some of the latter have been too long neglected by the hierarchy of Anglicanism.

Please let this booklet be a positive starter for serious and informed discussion about the true Identity of the Anglican Way.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)

Here is Collect that has been prayed—in Latin from the fifth century and in English from the sixteenth—at Holy Communion and in the Daily Offices on that Sunday (and week following) towards the end of the Christian Year known as Trinity XXII.

The usual English translation provided in The Book of Common Prayer from its first edition in 1549 is as follows:

Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy household the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here the Latin continua pietate is rendered “in continual godliness,” taking pietate to refer to human beings, and thus to how God’s people ought to behave and live. However, it is probable that the intended meaning of the Latin phrase was intended to relate to God and to mean “with thy continual pity/compassion” and so be a reference to the God’s guardianship of the Church—“We beseech thee to keep thy household the Church with thy continual pity…” Happily, either of these renderings makes perfect sense and the former was probably chosen by the Archbishop Cranmer in 1549 because he wanted it to be clear that those who are justified by faith are also to be those who live godly lives.

“Household” is good, old-fashioned English word which is little used today because its meaning hardly fits modern co-habitation and “family” structures. A household is an establishment consisting of children and servants, dwelling together under one roof, and subject to the rule and guardianship of a father and master (whose wife is the mistress). When speaking of the Church as God’s household the meaning is similar but not identical. God’s household consists of children and servants but these are not two distinct sets of people but one and the same people considered under two aspects. So he or she who in a real sense is a child of God (adopted by the grace of God for the sake of Jesus Christ) is also a servant of the LORD God, the Master (because a disciple of Jesus Christ). Thus the baptized, believing followers of the Lord Jesus Christ have both great and high privileges as the children of God and also many and profound duties as the servants of God. For ever and on into everlasting life these two aspects of their identity will remain for they are always beloved creatures with the privileges of adopted children and the duties of humble servants.

If we press the picture of the household, we can say that the Church is an ordered family where, while all are both children and servants, there are some servants who are above others and rule on behalf of the Master and in the spirit of the Master—thus the doctrine of “headship” and the sacred Ministry.

We all need to implore our heavenly Father—implore [beseech the Master] in order to let him know that we pray from the depths of our being and not merely with words framed in the mind or uttered by the lips—both to preserve his Church with his continuing pity and compassion and also to keep his Church in that genuine faith which issues in faithfulness and godliness. And to keep and preserve through thick and thin and especially in North America through the powerful attractions of the Zeitgeist which can take on religious attraction and is so seductive!

Of course, the Church can seek to go it alone and use its own human resources and claimed knowledge and experience to face the challenges and problems that necessarily exist in the secular culture today in the West. Yet, when it recalls and accepts that it is a household and not a democracy, it will seek the protection of God’s providence and care so that it is not overcome or infiltrated by adversities and adversaries (of which/whom there is no lack in the western world). Indeed the very best way to experience and enjoy the protection of the Most High is to be faithful as obedient servants committed to what the Master has commanded to be done in his Name and for his Kingdom and thus for his glory in this world.

What we have seen and been part of as Episcopalians or Anglicans in North America for a long time now is a sustained rebellion against the whole idea that the Church is the household of God and that we are not only children of God but also and always the servants of God. We act as though we are free citizens in a democracy where we make the rules and God rubberstamps them!What we have not liked, and still do not seem to like, is the implication that the Master makes the rules and gives the orders to the Church and there is no negotiation with him, only humble and loving submission to him through the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. We have thought that we can negotiate with God—e.g., make our own baptismal covenant to determine his relation to us—and, indeed, we have even acted as though we can make God in our image and after our own taste (God is Love and nothing much else). Thus we have rejected that doctrine and approach to God which bows in holy reverence before His Majesty and trembles there in holy fear, seeking to gain wisdom and knowledge (for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…) from the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray this Collect and do so with true devotion and piety.

Lord, we implore You to keep your household the Church with your constant compassion in continual godliness; that through your protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve you in good works, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

drpetertoon@yahoo.com November 11, 2006

What since medieval times has been called “The Missal” is the Book used by the Priest to celebrate Mass. It contains not only the text to read or sing but also the rubrics or instructions to follow. Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics still speak of “The Missal” as “that Book on the Altar.”

In the reformed Church of England and in Anglican Churches around the world “that Book on the Holy Table” which has larger print, often printed in two colors and used by the Celebrant at Holy Communion (and in the Blessing of a Marriage) is referred to as “The Altar Edition” of the Prayer Book or “The Chancel Edition” of the Prayer Book. Thus it is not the whole of The Book of Common Prayer [BCP] but contains the Order for Holy Communion, the Collects, Epistles and Gospels for the Church Year and sometimes the Marriage Service (for part of this is taken from within the Chancel). One can find “Altar Books” whose content is taken from the BCP editions of 1662, 1962 (Canada) and 1928 (USA). One can also find “Altar Books” for the various forms of modern Anglican “Books of Alternative Services” used in various Churches of the Anglican Communion.

If one visits an Anglican church which is part of one of the small, traditional Continuing Anglican denominations in the USA (e.g., ACA, ACC, APCK and offshoots from them) for Sunday morning service, it may well be called “The Mass” and on the Holy Table/Altar will not be “The Altar Edition of the BCP 1928” but “The Anglican Missal.” And in the pews will be either the BCP 1928 or “the People’s Missal.” However, the content of the Mass will be determined by the Priest using the Missal on the altar, a complex book which contains not only the Communion Service with Collects, Epistles and Gospels from the BCP 1928 but also many additions and extras which are taken from the traditional (pre-Vatican II) Roman Rite and translated into English. The assumption is that the BCP Service is inadequate and incomplete when standing alone and needs to be supplemented in order to reach the standard of being a true Mass.

[It is worth noting that the use of such a Missal is rare in Britain for those who think that the Anglican Rite is imperfect and needs supplementing actually usually take the logical step of using the modern Roman Missal.]

Let us now reflect upon the symbolism which The BCP Altar Edition on the one hand, and The Anglican Missal on the other, can generate for the thoughtful and imaginative observer.

First of all, an observer may wonder why those who use the Missal remain Anglicans when they obviously feel the need to supplement the official Anglican text in so many ways at so many places.

In the second place, an observer may be so impressed by the complexity and richness of the Missal (where the Celebrant and assistants are “professional”) as to think the BCP to be pale in comparison. He may ask: why do not all Anglicans adopt all this?

Thirdly, an observer who is learned in the history of doctrines, may ask how it is that Anglicans use in the Missal a text which asserts doctrines and customs which are prohibited in the classic Anglican Formularies, especially in The Articles of Religion and by the Ordinal.

Fourthly, an observer, who is a Roman Catholic, may complain that he is missing so much in the modern short Catholic Mass and express a desire for his own Church to return to the Tridentine Rite.

Of course, one can think of other possible observations people would make.

What I now would like to suggest is this that the two following situations are very different.

1 Where the BCP only is on the altar and where some of the “extras” found in the Missal are used by the choir (from musical texts), the Celebrant (from memory) and congregation (from memory), the BCP remains the fundamental text, the formulary. Here ceremonial and extras are added to the BCP text at the local level and are seen as enriching for this particular congregation—yet what is done is regarded as optional and not binding on any other congregation.

2 Where the Missal alone is on the altar and where its whole content is regarded as authoritative and where it is used because the priest believes that it is the superior text and the better/best way. And, further, it is seen as the better/best way for all who would be real anglo-catholics! It is not just an option is the real and true way, for anything less may be mistaken for “Protestant.” In this mindset there is also usually an open rejection of the Thirty-Nine Articles as authoritative.

The second position knowingly and deliberately rejects the Reformed Catholic character of the Anglican Way as that is known through the Anglican Formularies and seeks to change the Anglican Way into an old-style “Catholic” way. The first position sits, as it were, at the edge of the comprehensiveness of the Anglican Way for it claims only local option for its extras and recognizes that the Formulary is the BCP. There is a world of difference between the two positions.

Of course, as many old-time Anglicans and Episcopalians knew, it is possible to use the BCP as it is and “enrich” it with appropriate ceremonial, based on what was in use in England in the 1540s. See the The Parson’s Handbook by Percy Dearmer.

A final word: THE PRAYER BOOK SOCIETY OF THE U.S.A. has available a first-class edition of the BCP 1928 for the Altar. It is printed in two colors and is bound in good leather. It is the edition originally produced by Oxford University Press and is made by the printers and binders used by that distinguished Press. It is on special offer from Thanksgiving until the end of December. Call 1-800-727-1928.

Peter Toon drpetertoon@yahoo.com

Peter Toon November 7

This is a short essay aimed at inspiring others to think through some of the issues I raise. It is not intended as theological warfare but as a statement both for discussion and improvement.

Though I believe that the Church of God is in a profound sense “invisible,” I also believe that this dimension is primarily God’s business for He is himself invisible, being pure Spirit, and we as enfleshed are very much seen and visible.

So I have to make sense of the fact that what claims to be the Church of God exists through space and time and does so in some places in a bewildering variety of forms, as a complex assortment of jurisdictions, denominations and groups. Of all these, the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches have the clearest claim to both antiquity and continuity through space and time. However, we have to remember that many of the other smaller jurisdictions, denominations and groups exist because many people from the sixteenth century through to the present have sincerely believed that these two ancient Churches have seriously departed from their “first love” and from their apostolic origins, faith and practice.

Anglican

The word “Anglican” when used of God’s Church comes from the Latin word anglicana in the name ecclesia anglicana , which is the Church of God in/of England. So “an Anglican Church” is either the Church of England itself or one of those Churches formed by it or from it since the sixteenth century. Thus we speak of “the Anglican Communion of Churches.” And “an Anglican” is a member of one of these Churches.

It was only from the middle of the sixteenth century that the ecclesia anglicana was declared by the monarch and government of England to be an autonomous National Church, not under the authority of any other Church or ecclesiastical rule. This situation was not wholly new for in the long history of the Church of England from the patristic period, there were long periods when this Church was not directly under the supervision of the Pope.

Thus to be a member of the Church of England (or one of its global offshoots and extensions) is to be a member of a Church which has existed through space and time and which may be traced back as a congregation of Christ’s flock to the period after the apostles. That is, it always was a jurisdiction and part of the Catholikos, and in the sixteenth century it adopted a distinctive form of Catholicism, without ceasing to be part of the one Catholikos. This Anglican Church has grown since then and is now a global Communion of Churches. It expressed itself and explained itself through its Formularies—the Book of Common Prayer, The Ordinal and The Articles of Religion.

Regrettably, where we are now in history in 2006, the fact of being an Anglican does not also mean that we are in full communion with the Roman Church and the Orthodox Churches; but, it does mean that we are in full communion with most if not all of those other National Churches (and their own global offshoots) which also came into separated existence in the sixteenth century—e.g. the Lutheran Churches of Europe and around the world.

For an Anglican, this real but imperfect relation to the whole, historical Catholic Church of God is most important as a place to stand and as a people of God to belong to. At the same time, what is also very important is the actual experiential relation to the Father through the Son in the worship of the local Body of Christ and in personal devotion and service. Through careful and devoted use of the Bible and other means, an Anglican alone and with others looks up to the Lord Jesus and through him to the Father in adoration; he looks backwards to the apostolic age and all the saints who have been graced by God through the centuries and provide holy examples; he looks around and sees the divided and confused state of the Church of God today and also he sees the mission and vocation of the Church in the world today; and, at the same time, he looks forward in hope for the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ to raise the dead and to judge the people and to bring the Church, which he bought with his precious blood ,to glorious perfection and unity.

Continuity of the Church through space and time is important for the Anglican mind and this is seen in terms of continuity in the Faith of Christ, in ecclesial institutions (provinces, dioceses etc) and in Ministry, particularly, of Pastors (Bishops). It is not one of these without the others but all together that is important for the claim of the Anglican Churches to be a jurisdiction within, and a part of, the Catholikos. That is, Anglicans can humbly recite the Nicene Creed with its declaration of belief in the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church, because they have been baptized in the Triune Name and they are members of a Church which claims to be a microcosm of the whole Church of God and for which continuity of faith, order and institutions through space and time point back to the primitive Church. This claim has been set forth from the beginning in the Anglican Formularies—Book of Common Prayer, Ordinal and Articles of Religion—which have been a kind of glue binding together the Family of Churches.

In 2006 the Family of Churches is facing an identity problem of what it means to be Anglican. And at the personal level individual members are asking the same question. Here are several examples of what is being said and asked in the USA:

What happens to the claim to be in the Catholikos when a member Church of the Anglican Family in synodical action rejects the received Faith and Order and Formularies and engages in innovations which most of the Family think are heretical and immoral? Are the members who wish to be orthodox to stay or to leave, and to where are they to go if they want to remain within the Catholikos?

The major claim of the Continuing [Anglo-Catholic] Anglican Churches—the small denominations which have deliberately left one or another of the Churches of the Anglican Family—to be in the Catholikos is by a strong claim that their bishops are in “apostolic succession” which means that they can trace their consecration through the laying on of hands back through space and time (not a few of them have charts in their offices showing this long line through the centuries). Being successors of the apostles, they hold, brings with it the claim that they can dispense “valid sacraments.” But is this claim to apostolic succession in some ways negated or mitigated by the fact that these groups are “schismatic”? Is there not within the Anglican claim to authenticity also the reality of a real living connection with the original Anglican Identity and Family, usually through the See of Canterbury (as the Affirmation of St Louis 1977 appears to recognize)?

And what about the action taken by evangelical and charismatic groups who leave an Episcopal diocese in the USA or an Anglican one in Canada, form themselves into a congregation and choose a bishop from overseas to be their Pastor? What kind of a church is it that they have formed by their schism and by their looking around for a suitable Guide? Is it part of the Catholikos?

Conclusion

Maybe it’s because I was born in England and ordained in the ecclesia anglicana in 1973 that I cling (perhaps weakly) to the claim that I am in the Catholikos of God the Father by reason of membership in that Church or in another formed from it—even if that Church is weak in its commitment to historical Christianity and traditional doctrine. Though I surely know that they are many people of deeper faith and devotion than I possess, and there are many clergy with greater commitment and energy than I have in the various Continuing Anglican denominations and in the various Extra-Mural Anglican entities, I myself still feel “more secure” and on “safer ground” within one of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. I say this because of my sense that to be Catholic there needs to be continuity through space and time. And I say this very conscious of the many problems and difficulties faced especially in the West by this imperfect and fractured Anglican Family and Communion of Churches in 2006. I think of the Lambeth Conference of July 2008 as the final opportunity in my lifetime on earth for it to be made clear how the Anglican Way is to be set right, to work with a conciliar polity, and how its members will be energized to begin to walk in harmony and in truth to evangelize the nations and to be fully engaged in God’s own mission.


[My long essay on ANGLICAN IDENTITY as a 64 page booklet will be published next week and will be available for purchase from November 16th at www.anglicanmarketplace.com and from 1-800-727-1928. It deals in some detail with the three major Reports—Eames, Virginia & Windsor—and other recent statements and events in search of an answer.]