Posted on 07/31/2005 5:22:28 PM PDT by sionnsar
[picture] Caption: The Rev. Paul Kelly, deacon of St. Joseph's Anglican Church in Sanford, prays at an altar on behalf of the congregation. The church, new to Sanford, is a return to the traditional Anglican doctrine and worship. The church meets at the Owl's Nest Club House at 10 a.m. each Sunday.
SANFORD - "We were home."
Sanford residents Hayden Lutterloh and Chris Gerry are among the many former Episcopalians who have found a new home in the Anglican Church.
Since the late 1970s, the Episcopal Church of the United States has instituted a series of changes in liturgy and doctrine, such as a revised Book of Common Prayer, fewer requirements to take communion, ordination of women, and ordination of homosexuals.
For some, these changes have been hailed as modernizing the church, making it more relevant to contemporary life. But traditionalists, like Lutterloh and Gerry, were appalled at the changes and looked elsewhere for a worshipping community.
Both found it in The Anglican Province of Christ the King [APCK], one of several Anglican unions that sprang up in United States in the late 1970s, as a reaction to the changes in the Episcopal Church.
A group of Episcopal laity and clergy gathered in St. Louis, Mo., in 1977 and issued a statement of faith, known as the Affirmation of St. Louis. Its guiding principals are found in the King James Bible, 1928 Book of Common Prayer and teachings of the early church fathers.
Members and clergy of the Anglican Province see themselves as preserving "the faith once delivered to the saints," as St. Paul the Apostle said. They recognize their clergy as having been ordained through an unbroken line of ecclesiastical authority traced, through the ancient apostles and bishop of Rome, back to Jesus Christ himself.
The continuity of religious doctrine and practice is important to them, Gerry said, adding that the church service in his father's 100-year-old Episcopal prayer book is word-for-word the service in the Anglican Church.
In Sanford, a fledgling congregation of about 10 meets for worship as St. Joseph's Anglican Church at The Owl's Nest Club House.
"This is a mission," said The Rev. Mr. Paul Kelly, deacon of St. Joseph's. "I was called by God to start this congregation and got my bishop's permission to do so."
Kelly doesn't see the Anglican Church as being in competition with the Episcopal Church.
"Some people are happy moving forward with a progressive Episcopal Church," he said. "We provide a haven for those who are not. Our relationship is complementary, not competitive."
Back in 1988, Kelly was attending St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Concord. When the bishop said the church would have a female priest, Kelly and others left and began attending an Anglican congregation.
He later felt the call to the priesthood, attended seminary and was ordained as an Anglican deacon in 1996. He is now studying for his ordination as a priest.
The Anglican Province of Christ the King is part of the world-wide Anglican Communion, which grew out of the Church of England. The Anglican Communion is part of what Kelly calls, the One Holy Apostolic Church, which also includes Catholicism and orthodox churches - churches that trace the legitimacy of their priesthood back to Jesus Christ and his apostles.
The Episcopal Church is also a member. According to Lutterloh, when the national Episcopal church approved the ordination of women and homosexuals, they broke their line of priesthood legitimacy.
The Episcopal church in America ordained its first woman priest in 1974, seeing it as giving women that opportunity to serve and deserved equality in the church hierarchy.
Women are important in the Anglican Church, serving in many positions, including on the church's ruling body, but is not part of the doctrines of the church for women to be ordained to the priesthood.
"The church is about salvation, not social justice," Kelly said. "If it were about social justice, I'd join a political party. Holding the priesthood is not a civil right; it's a sacred duty men hold."
Doctrinally, the Anglican Church is "about one step from Rome," Kelly said.
"We do not require people to believe in the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary (the mother of Jesus) or the infallibility of the pope, but some members do," he said. "I read the papal encyclicals because they are the work of very godly men."
For Lutterloh, the Anglican Church has regained the church as it was.
"If God is unchanging, the church is unchanging," he said. "I've never been in an Anglican Church where the members weren't avid - they were so happy to be home."
St. Joseph's Anglican Church meets at the Owl's Nest Clubhouse, 1414 Owl's Nest Road, Sanford, at 10 a.m. each Sunday. The church can be reached at (919) 775-4252.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. By the way, Hayden Lutterloh is the very smart Fire Chief in Sanford.
A group of Episcopal laity and clergy gathered in St. Louis, Mo., in 1977 and issued a statement of faith, known as the Affirmation of St. Louis. Its guiding principals are found in the King James Bible, 1928 Book of Common Prayer and teachings of the early church fathers.
The Affirmation of St. Louis is what generated the OPACC.
I have to say that I am not certain that all the signatories to the Affirmation of St. Louis are in communion. I don't know the particulars, but I have heard that not all the parties played by the rules established there.
I will have to ask him. He is a retired medical doctor, as was his father and grandfather.
In Christ,
Deacon Paul+
sionnsar, thanks for this. Interesting. So, quoting article regarding the APCK:
'"We do not require people to believe in the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary (the mother of Jesus) or the infallibility of the pope, but some members do," he said. "I read the papal encyclicals because they are the work of very godly men."'
Sounds like a good place to consider for folks fleeing ECUSA in Sanford, NC.
I obviously think so, since I've been in the APCK for 22+ years now. I'm not going to push anyone into leaving ECUSA (it was awfully hard for us to leave), but in the APCK I rediscovered the church I'd grown up in and would suggest anyone leaving ECUSA to take a look. (And/or check out the other Continuing churches also.)
Thanks for self-disclosing that.
Certainly worth praying about the APCK for many disenfranchised ECUSA-ites.
[I dearly love Roman Catholics, respect them greatly, and know they are my siblings and fellow heirs in Christ. Of course the Lord Jesus was born of a virgin, that I do believe. However, though I am familiar with why RCs believe in the immaculate conception of Mary, I do not find that to be accurate. Were that right, how could Jesus be wholly God and wholly man?
[But I admire their reverance, their zeal, their stand on the sanctity of life, their training up of children, their close ties to Christianity's beautiful traditions and multi-faceted expressions of God's glory in liturgy, music, and the arts.]
Anyway, that item has been a disconnect for me so that I have not felt free to consider returning to Rome.
Thanks again for all the ways you share of yourself. Greatly appreciate your work, and newheart's too.
JM
Yours in Christ,
Alkhin
OOOO Jocko, you make an EXCELLENT point...wish I had thought of that. Its the same argument I have : am all too ready to honor Mary for her blessed role in our salvation, but not willing to go so far as to say she is to be the Pathway itself. It is too easy a step for deification by saying she was an immaculate conception herself.
As a Roman Catholic, I'd like to just point out that I haven't the faintest clue what you two are talking about.
For example, if blessed Mary's Immaculate Conception means that Jesus could not have been true God and true man, then we'd have to equally admit that Eve could not have had human children if the Fall had not taken place, because Eve in her unfallen state was more, not less, privileged than Mary was. Cain and Abel would have been what, then ... demigods? Not likely!
Maybe the two of you could start be explaining what you think the term "Immaculate Conception" means.
OOOOOPs.
Sorry, didn't mean to start a debate.
Again, I apologize.
No, please don't; you have nothing to apologize for! Look, if you aren't a Catholic because you misunderstand what we believe, ought you not to come to a correct understanding of it? That way, if you still disagree, at least you're disagreeing with Catholicism, not a mistaken idea of what Catholicism is and what it teaches. And, if you don't really disagree ... ??
The reason I posted was that your objections don't make sense to me -- not that I disagree with you theologically, but that you seem to me to be objecting, not to the Immaculate Conception, but to something that the IC isn't. I'm trying to get at what that "something" is. If it's a real objection, trust me: I'll tell you. ;-)
Sigh. Thank you Alkhin. My only comment is this: Here's how I feel about the Lord Jesus, quoting, written by Don Jernigan,
"Who can satisfy my soul like You?
Who on earth, could comfort me
and love me like You do?
Who could ever be more faithful true?
I will trust in You; I will trust in You, my God.
There is a fountain who is a King
Victorious Warrior and Lord of everything
My Rock, my Shelter,
My very own
Blessed Redeemer, who reigns up
on the throne
Living water, rain down Your life on me
Cleasing me, refreshing me with life abundantly
River, full of life, I'll go where You lead
I will trust in You, I will trust in You, my God.
There is a fountain who is a King
Victorious Warrior and Lord of everything
My Rock, my Shelter,
My very own
Blessed Redeemer, who reigns up
on the throne
### Did not mean to start any debate. Not up to that. That's all. ###
OK. Thanks. Just worked seven days straight, am hanging out on FR and getting up the steam to do some overdue chores. So, not meaning to get into any heavy talks now, made a comment to sionnsar that should have been private I guess.
All blessings dear sibling in Christ. Good day.
JM
I am speaking towards Marionology, which has been making inroads within the RCC. It is the RCC's job to articulate what they mean by Marionology, not those who have chosen to reject it.
You didn't define what you mean by the term, or rather, what you think we mean by the term, though.
(Actually, I'd almost say that the IC doesn't apply to Jesus at all, because saying that a Divine Person is conceived free from original sin and fully graced is tautological -- there's no other kind of Divine Person -- but that's an aside.)
To move it back to make some statement about Mary as having already the means by which to bring God as Man into the world
Huh?
It implies that Mary did NOT have free will
Huh? If the IC implies that Mary did not have free will, then Eve's creation in the garden also implies she didn't have free will, either.
Mary had the free will to say no to God, and did not.
Thanks, we're in complete agreement. Why do you think we aren't?
It is the RCC's job to articulate what they mean by Marionology, not those who have chosen to reject it.
If you can't define what you're rejecting, how do you know what it is?
Gotta get back to work. It's not clear to me that you really know what Catholics believe, though.
No, my dear, absolutely the opposite is true. The Immaculate Conception of Mary means God created her from the moment of her Conception with that same condition which Eve enjoyed before the Fall. Thus, when Eve chooses evil she does so in supreme free will unencumbered by the Fall, and when Mary gives her Fiat (saying "Yes" to God) she does so in the self same supreme free will unencumbered by the effects of the Fall. Thus "two choices of womankind" are given within a like freedom, a free will, a being free from the effects of the Fall.
Now, how Our Lady came to receive this singular grace is a different subject, totally because of the Victory upon the Cross of Jesus Christ who was, and is, and is to come.
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