Posted on 12/08/2012 2:34:25 PM PST by NYer
.- Former Episcopal priest Laurence Gipson, who became Catholic in October, says his reaction to the Catholic ordinariate for former Anglicans is one of “gratitude.”
“The ordinariate, I think, is a wonderful opportunity for people like me, Anglican clergy and Anglican laity, who are seeking Catholic faith,” he said.
On Jan. 1, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI established the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter to allow Anglican and Episcopalian groups in the U.S. to become Catholic as groups, not only as individuals. It follows the Pope’s November 2009 apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus,” which authorized the creation of the special church structures.
Gipson, a 70-year-old native of Memphis, Tenn., said he is grateful to Pope Benedict for establishing the ordinariate. He said it is “advancing the cause of unity in the Church.”
“It offers Anglicans a way to affirm the Catholic faith, that is, a way to affirm orthodox or right belief, while at the same time being able to worship God and practice the Christian life according to the Anglican tradition and patrimony,” he told CNA Dec. 7.
“The Catholic faith and Anglican use are a great combination,” Gipson continued. “Catholics have welcomed us warmly. They’ve extended the right hand of fellowship to us, and I’m really grateful for that.”
Gipson and his wife Mary Frances were received on Oct. 28 into the Catholic Church at Houston’s Our Lady of Walsingham Church through the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.
He was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1971. He served as rector of the Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tenn. and was dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Ala.
For 14 years before his retirement in February 2008, he served as rector at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. The church’s parishioners include former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush.
Gipson and his wife have been married for 48 years. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.
He said he was drawn to the Catholic faith in part because of the Church’s “clarity” in teachings and the “unity of faith amongst the faithful.”
“What I yearned for and sought was a more centralized understanding of authority, the magisterium, the teaching authority, which could much more quickly and much more definitely interpret scripture and decide on the faith when it was in dispute and settle those issues.”
Gipson said Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, the head of the U.S. ordinariate, and the theology faculty of the University of St. Thomas were among those who helped him become Catholic.
“My hope is to be ordained to the priesthood of the Catholic Church,” Gipson said. “I would like to practice that priesthood in any way that’s useful to the ordinariate.”
“I’ve been a parish priest all of my life in the Episcopal Church, for 42 years,” Gipson said. “That’s where my enthusiasm is, at the level of the parish, teaching and preaching, pastoral ministry.”
There are at least 69 candidates for the Catholic priesthood undergoing formation for possible ordination in the ordinariate. The ordinariate has ordained 24 priests since its launch in January. Many of them are married men ordained under a special dispensation in place since 1983.
Gipson said he is “deeply grateful” for his 58 years in the Episcopal Church
“The clergy and the people of the Episcopal Church gave me and my family more in the way of acceptance and support and generosity and love than we could ever have imagined or have deserved,” he said. “Each day serving was a blessing. It prepared me for, and gave me a yearning, for the Catholic Church in its fullness in all aspects of Christ’s Church.
The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have faced much controversy in recent decades over the interpretation of Scripture, the ordination of women as priests, Christian sexual morality and other issues.
“I see the controversies as an outcome of the nature of authority in the Anglican Church and the Anglican Communion,” Gipson said. There are 34 provincial churches in the communion which are autonomous.
“Without a magisterium to interpret and define the faith, what Anglicanism relies on is dispersed authority rather than centralized authority,” he added.
“What I realized of course is that the Anglican tradition about authority is a part of the identity of Anglicanism, and Anglicanism does not wish to change that manner of authority,” Gipson explained. “The Anglican Communion wishes authority to be dispersed. I decided that I could not ask Anglicanism to change its identity for me, so I was the one that had to do the changing.”
He asked Catholics to show “patience” towards new members of the ordinariate and the Catholic Church.
“We’re just learning how to be good Catholics and there’s a lot to learn,” he said.
i don't know enough about this beyond what I've read in the online papers, but I don't believe that they elected the black President just to embrace diversity. From what i've read about him (admittedly very little), he seems conservative and a good President for the SBC
I agree with Albion's Luther never intended to break from the Roman Catholic Church, only to reform it. But once the break was set in motion, other breakaways began, with tight or loose canon law. -- in fact he and Calvin and Zwingli tried to form a council. Luther, iirc was appalled by the continuing innovations, complaining that people now threw out one piece of doctrine or the other.
Cronos, you obviously see the bigger problem - ALL Christian denominations in the west are suffering declining membership rolls - even the recent growth denominations within the evangelical/pentecostal churches and the non-denominational movement. The evidence does point to a faster rate of decline within those protestant denominations which have embraced "social justice" and the LBGTQ wave, i.e., UCC, TEC, ELCA, and PCUSA.
Yes, he does seem to be orthodox in his beliefs. Just repeating opinons I have read on SBC sites. He did say, within a week of his election, that he intended to put more blacks into positions of influence within the SBC ranks. That sounded ominous to me. Haven't heard much lately from him ... we shall see what develops.
Interesting observation. Methodism gave us Hillary Clinton who often talks about how her dedication to "public service" has its roots in the Methodism of her youth.
In that era, what was viewed to be low church -- and especially in terms of sacramental ministry -- would be very high church today, and that even in many Catholic Churches. One Catholic Contemporary service I attended a few years back, led by a Franciscan priest, had a barely high church eucharist. And certainly, when doing joint services with priests during my Army years, they cut so many corners when we were in "field/deployed" conditions, that their service was barely distinguishable from a protestant field service. Methodism...ending slavery in the British Empire
I have no doubt that John Wesley, who was a friend of MP and British abolitionist William Wilburforce, was the major voice that turned Wilberforce against slavery. Wesley taught that liberty was God and a matter of natural law.
Wesley OFTEN spoke out that Methodism should not be separate from Anglicanism. The nature of travel and communication in the 18th century, however, made the Methodist movement evolve independent of the Anglican Church from Revolutionary War times until well past the war of 1812.
The very nature of what was happening in America -- with the westward expansion, the establishment of small settlement churches, their pastors being traveling, itinerant preachers -- all of that was a NECESSARY element to the expansion of Christianity westward in an American frontier culture. High Church Anglicanism simply would have been insufficient to the task. (For example see "The History of Methodism in Kentucky" by W.E. Arnold, Herald Presss, 1935.) The early years were simply harrowing for those itinerant Methodist preachers, and taking up that calling was too often a death sentence for them brought on by illness, accident, or native attack.
Theological liberalism won over mainstream seminaries early in the 20th century with their biblical criticism, search for a historical Jesus, and their moderate approach to "life lessons" gained from scripture. It was poisoned fruit with many seminarians thinking they were choosing "open-mindedness". They weren't. The real choice was between divinely inspired scripture and human reason. By choosing human reason, they subscribed to a fallen, flawed, inherent depravity that would gradually take them all the way to today...a rejection of scripture, God, and sound Christian doctrine.
The people learned too late what was transpiring with their "leaders". By then these had infested their hierarchies, and their only recourse was to fight or leave. The infestation was so bad in many denominations that we've lived to see the result, and we've lived to see the believers in those denomination depart them.
Methodism still struggles on, and we have our victories. The infestation in our slow-moving governmental structure is nearly impossible to dislodge. We have held the line until this era against homosexuality and have gradually moved toward a more acceptable position on life.
This culture, though, is so thoroughly indoctrinated on homosexuality that I fear that battle is going to be lost in our denomination, and I fear for every other denomination, even those with independent, local governance.
I share your fear that many denominations are going to lose the fight against the pseudosex, pseudomarriage agenda.
Initially, I'd hesitate to suggest that you go slumming, but let me say: armor yourself with protection via the Holy Spirit, and then check out the following slum: Gay Christian websites (Link).
Any of them will give you the same theme: the re-intepretation of Scripture (via "improved," "new," "expert" "translations" and "scholarship,") which all arrive at the same conclusions: that the O.T. and N.T. admonitions which have always been interpreted as very broad, exceptionless norms against gay sex, are to be seen as narrow, technical condemnations specifically of pagan temple prostitution and (possible) servile pederasty ONLY, but not against ALL male-male and female-female sex relations.
It all hinges on a tendentious translation of malakoi and arsenokoitai to mean, not all same-sex relations, but only to those particular cultural forms which were prevalent amongst the Canaanites (OT) and the pagan Greeks (NT). In other words, it can't apply to nice, normal, Christian gay couples who are married or want to be married, because this was a form of behavior unknown and unaddressed in Biblical times.
It's a clever argument, and it's not definitively refutable outside of Natural Law and the doctrines of historic Christianity. It will carry the day in any seminary, and in any congregation, that goes with what is plausible and nice and supported by attractve churchy people. They'll do gay marriages, toting big Bibles, and scattering rose petals under Paul-quoting banners that say "Marriage is honorable for all, and the bed undefiled," and "He who loves his neighbor, has fulfilled the whole Law."
Do you believe that this started in the 60s?
And your post tells me I need to learn more about the differences between High and Low Church
Correct -- in much the same way that Luther did not intend to break away from the Roman Catholic church; just to reform it.
Here is an interesting chart from Wikipedia's pages on the Protestant Reformation:
I agree with you, Mac, that these, if they had any integrity, would leave and start their own denomination.
They are, however, parasites. They have infested the hierarchies of mainline churches, Methodism being one example, and they and their appointed cronies live large off the offering plate. I can honestly say, after decades of fully ordained ministry within Methodism, that I've never received anything from our hierarchy that wasn't at root a plea for money. (These parasites reject scripture out of hand, but be assured that they take "tithing" literally. Nothing else, but money is a different subject.)
Bishops live in million dollar manses, have unbelievable expense accounts, and live very, very large. I always cringe when the hierarchy calls on small groups to meet with them. Generally, it's at some nice hotel or restaurant with the offering plate from struggling local churches picking up the tab unbeknownst to them.
With their liberal politics in a symbiotic relationship with their liberal theology, they are the kissing cousins of political bureaucrats, and are distinguishable only in that they have "church" somewhere in their biography.
What is the role of a parasite except to live off the body of its host? I liken these to disease carrying ticks who suck blood PLUS leave lime's disease in the wake.
These feast and leave spiritual poison also leading to spiritual death. "They are a blight on our love feasts."
Your post is a refreshing observation. The term "Protestant" has always contained the root of rebellion anyway; but it was a sharp cultural distinction during my long-ago youth. I have identified as "evangelical" since leaving the UMC ten years ago, and have subsisted primarily on house churches centered on prayer.
Currently I am commuting 130 miles roundtrip once a week to go to a class on the schism at a small Lutheran church where the pastor, age 30, is a committed Bible-believing purist and social conservative. That alone is a cultural phenomenon worth the gasoline; and the class is excellent as well. A small group of Christians in a small, musty basement of a tiny church out in the mountains, studying the Lutheran reformation, Luther's small catechism, the Creeds and so on.
Like old times, but for the lions (so far).
I believe it accelerated in the 60s. The late 60s with free love, drugs, counter-culture, radical liberalism, and the rejection of established values was actually born prior to its outbreak.
In the same way as "beatniks" preceded "hippies", in theology, the explosion of theological liberalism was certainly helped by the media's attack on our values-based American culture, but it was preceded by the slow erosion of our theology in our education centers. Depending on which voice you listen to, the major impact seems to have come from the European (German?) historical-critical directions taken by such stars as Rudolf Bultmann and Heidegger.
Their focus was "demythologizing" scripture. By that, they meant basically that you had to purge anything "miraculous-sounding" from scripture before you studied it. And this was after you'd already purged any scripture they felt really was illegitimate.
As mentioned earlier, for our modern churchites in the hierarchy, that pretty well frees us of all God's written word except the part about tithing.
I believe it accelerated in the 60s. The late 60s with free love, drugs, counter-culture, radical liberalism, and the rejection of established values was actually born prior to its outbreak.
In the same way as "beatniks" preceded "hippies", in theology, the explosion of theological liberalism was certainly helped by the media's attack on our values-based American culture, but it was preceded by the slow erosion of our theology in our education centers. Depending on which voice you listen to, the major impact seems to have come from the European (German?) historical-critical directions taken by such stars as Rudolf Bultmann and Heidegger.
Their focus was "demythologizing" scripture. By that, they meant basically that you had to purge anything "miraculous-sounding" from scripture before you studied it. And this was after you'd already purged any scripture they felt really was illegitimate.
As mentioned earlier, for our modern churchites in the hierarchy, that pretty well frees us of all God's written word except the part about tithing.
Sorry for the double post...
I believe it accelerated in the 60s. The late 60s with free love, drugs, counter-culture, radical liberalism, and the rejection of established values was actually born prior to its outbreak.
In the same way as "beatniks" preceded "hippies", in theology, the explosion of theological liberalism was certainly helped by the media's attack on our values-based American culture, but it was preceded by the slow erosion of our theology in our education centers. Depending on which voice you listen to, the major impact seems to have come from the European (German?) historical-critical directions taken by such stars as Rudolf Bultmann and Heidegger.
Their focus was "demythologizing" scripture. By that, they meant basically that you had to purge anything "miraculous-sounding" from scripture before you studied it. And this was after you'd already purged any scripture they felt really was illegitimate. ...
The Christianity Primer: Two Thousand Years of Amazing Grace – The History, Development, and Meaning of the Christian Religion, by Paul F.M. Zahl, © 2005
Rev. Dr. Zahl (now aged 61) is an ordained (Episcopal) orthodox Christian theologian and prolific writer. He served for almost a decade (ending in 2004) as the dean of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL. He left in 2004 to become president of the Trinity School for Ministry (Episcopal) (the only orthodox seminary of the 11 TEC seminaries) outside of Pittsburg, PA. In 2007 he accepted the call to be rector to All Saints Church in Chevy Chase, MD.
"Chapter XX The Nineteenth Century: Modernism, Science, and the Bible"
p. 281-2 LIBERAL CATHOLICSM
… The 2nd reaction to the rise of modernism, science, and biblical criticism came from intellectuals and artists in England, America, and Scandinavia who came to embrace a philosophy referred to as romanticism. In the area of religion, romanticism manifests itself in the school of thought known as liberal catholicism. Liberal catholicism is not part of the Roman Catholic Church but is a specific version of Christianity that actually grew in liturgical Protestant churches such as the Anglican and Lutheran.
Liberal Catholicism is the dominant ethos of Anglicans in England and America today. It has a strong resonance with movements in the wider culture regarding homosexuality, pluralism and freedom of expression, yet with taste. We sometimes say that American Episcopalians will perform same-sex marriages, but not during Lent!
Liberal Catholicism combines dignified and beautiful worship with a sense of history and continuity and with modern ideas of science, the Bible, and progress. Rowan Williams, the 104th archbishop of Canterbury, is a liberal catholic, as is the current (2005) presiding bishop of the American Episcopal Church (Frank Griswold, now retired at age 74). The same is true of high church German Lutherans, a large minority of American Lutherans (mostly the ELCA) and the majority of Swedish Lutherans.
Liberal catholicism has become an influential species of romanticism. It is quite opposed to traditional Anglo-Catholicism and is extremely influential among mainstream Protestant Christians today.
p. 289 The Failure of the Ecumenical Movement … The ecumenical movement – the bringing together of Christians of all churches into common cause and unity – came and went. Beginning after WWI as a Protestant movement … it peaked with the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948 (3 years after the founding of the United Nations). The Roman Catholics never joined, but the Orthodox churches did. The continuing failure to involve the Roman Catholic Church, the decline of liberal Protestantism in numbers and money, and the rise of unecumenical evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism in the southern hemisphere were realities too substantial for the ecumenical movement to overcome. Ecumenical unity among the churches will have to wait for another day.
Chapter XXI The Twentieth Century: The Challenge of Three Formidable Problems
p. 295 JUDAISMS ENDURING NO
… Judaism’s enduring no (refusal to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God/ messiah) has never changed. Judaism has been strengthened immeasurably by the identity-renewing fact of the Holocaust and its political consequence, the creation of the state of Israel (despite the fact that Jews in the United States are increasingly secularized). The Christian significance of Judaism’s no has been worked out in changed doctrine for the Roman Catholics and sapped confidence for the Protestants. Large sectors of Christianity have lost their nerve as a result of Judaism’s negation. …
p. 286 The Catholic Church altered its teaching
… As a result of awareness of the Holocaust, the Catholic Church actually altered its historic teaching concerning Jews. Instead of saying that Jews needed to become Christians to be saved, Pope John Paul II instead declared just after the turn of the (21st) century that Jews have their own way to God and their own covenant and that these are just as valid for Jews as the New Covenant is for Christians. he was able with the stroke of a pen to declare null and void a position that his predecessors had taken from the earliest times. …
p. 295 … I predict that the next 30 years will see Christians needing to work very hard to absorb the impact of Jewish perspectives without giving up their own souls. The Southern Baptists, who have not compromised in relation to “Jewish evangelism,” may in fact end up carrying the soul of Bible Christianity for the rest of the Protestant churches during this era of Christian insecurity concerning the Person of Christ.
Excellent summary which reflects what we are all seeing and discussing.
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/thornton101412.html
One Nation, Under God?
by Bruce Thornton
October 14, 2012
God bless them both. Methodists of old had a proud history to be grateful for.
In more contemporary times, the charity GoodWill Industries was founded out of a Methodist church and was enthusiastically supported by Methodist volunteers and donors throughout the last century. Although it also has moved out of the Methodist umbrella, it has remained a highly-rated charity.
the Methodist movement evolve[d] independent of the Anglican Church from Revolutionary War times until well past the war of 1812.... [W]ith the westward expansion, the establishment of small settlement churches [with] traveling, itinerant preachers -- all of that was a NECESSARY element to the expansion of Christianity westward in an American frontier culture. High Church Anglicanism simply would have been insufficient... The early years were simply harrowing for those itinerant Methodist preachers... too often a death sentence... brought on by illness, accident, or native attack.
We learned about those "circuit riders" in Sunday School, as well as of our first American bishop, Francis Asbury, who instituted the circuit-riding form of pastoring in America, and for whom many Methodist buildings and institutions were named.
Excerpted from Wikipedia:
Francis Asbury (1745 – 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now The United Methodist Church in the United States. As a young man in October 1771, English-born Francis Asbury traveled to America and, during his 45-year ministry in America, he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback or by carriage thousands of miles to faithfully deliver sermons to those living on the frontier. Bishop Asbury's tireless leadership helped spread Methodism in America. He also launched several schools during his lifetime, although his own formal education was limited. His journal left a lasting legacy and is valuable to scholars for its account of frontier society, as well as giving insights into his life and ministry...
From Encyclopedia Brittanica online:
Asbury crossed the Alleghenies 60 times and traveled an average of 5,000 miles a year on horseback. The early growth of the church was largely the result of his strenuous efforts; when he arrived in America there were only three Methodist meetinghouses and about 300 communicants. By the time of his death there were 412 Methodist societies with a membership of 214,235.
Theological liberalism won over mainstream seminaries early in the 20th century...The people learned too late what was transpiring with their "leaders". By then these had infested their hierarchies, and their only recourse was to fight or leave....Methodism still struggles on, and we have our victories. The infestation in our slow-moving [church governing body]...is nearly impossible to dislodge. We have held the line until this era against homosexuality and have gradually moved toward a more acceptable position on life...[but] I fear that [the] battle [to affirm homosexual behaviors] is going to be lost in our denomination, and... every other denomination, even those with independent, local governance.
It wasn't just liberal theology behind the disintegration of scriptural theology. From the fascination by influential individuals within Methodism with the emerging doctrine of Communism in the beginning of the last century to the outright planned infiltration of mainstream churches by the Communist Party USA, Satan has been very busy.
It's a lot of reading; but for those who have the time or interest to bookmark these articles, they tell of the seduction or deliberate infiltration of Methodism and Catholicism by communist operatives:
Excerpts from The Congressional Record on Investigation of Communist Activities
Hearing Before The Committee on Un-American Activities
House of Representatives, 83rd Congress, July 7 and 8, and July 13 and 14, 1953
The Methodist Federation for Social Action, originally called the Methodist Federation for Social Service, was first organized by a group of Socialist, Marxist clergymen of the Methodist church headed by Dr. Harry F. Ward. Dr. Ward was the organizer, for almost a lifetime its secretary and actual leader. He at all times set its ideological and political pattern. Its objective was to transform the Methodist Church and Christianity into an instrument for the achievement of socialism. It was established in 1907, 12 years before the organization of the Communist Party in the United States in 1919.The outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in November 1917 had a tremendous effect upon the Socialist ministers of this organization and especially upon Dr. Ward. When the Communist Party was organized in 1919, Dr. Ward was already a convinced Communist with a few insignificant minor reservations. By 1920 he was already, though not yet a member of the Communist Party, cooperating and collaborating with the Communist Party.
This collaboration of Dr. Ward with the Communist Party was reflected in the expressions and activities of the Methodist Federation for Social Action. The inner hard core of the Methodist Federation consisted, up to the time Jack R. McMichael, a member and leader of the Young Communist League, was elected its executive secretary, after Dr. Ward had relinquished his post, of a Communist cell headed by Ward, which functioned under the direction of the Communist Party.
Source: Collectivism in churches, Chapter 2: "COLLABORATORS WITH COMMUNISM" by Edgar C. Bundy
Bella Dodd -- From Communist to Catholic
How was it that a little Catholic girl -- born in Italy-- became one of the most powerful figures of the American Communist Party at the height of its power during the late 1930's and 1940's? The story of Maria Assunta Isabella Visono's journey from a poor southern Italian village to the intrigues of Soviet Communist penetration of America is fascinating and frightening. It should be better known than it is....
Because her organizational ability was so astute, Bella was put in charge of sending groups of young Communists into minority neighborhoods in New York -- Black, Puerto Rican, poor Irish, poor Jews and other recent immigrants -- to rev up the discontent of the disaffected and to enlist their support for Communist and left-wing candidates for local, state and national elections. The extent of Communist influenceat the local level in the city was astounding, with many elective posts filled by Marxists or their sympathizers. Even at the state level, Communists had great influence, Bella included, because of her work with the teachers unions. At the national level, they canvassed neighborhoods to get out the vote for FDR.
How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma
Even Ted Kennedy, who gets a 100% pro-choice rating from the abortion-rights group Naral, was at one time prolife. In fact, in 1971, a full year after New York had legalized abortion, the Massachusetts senator was still championing the rights of the unborn. In...1971, he wrote: "When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which...[would] fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception." But that all changed in the early '70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters)....
At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., ... in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers.... were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a "clear conscience." [F]ormer Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book The Birth of Bioethics...he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion...
During the 1980’s, United Methodist Church missionaries toiled in Nicaragua, not planting churches or winning souls, but flaking for the Sandinista experiment with Central American Marxism. Today, some of those missionaries have reemerged to agitate for Honduras’ ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya... The Methodist missionaries in Nicaragua during the 1980’s worked for a pro-Sandinista relief group, CEPAD, which was also funded by the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries. Said one CEPAD official in 1984: “We not only support the Sandinista government, but we are immersed in the revolution.”
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