Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. "No-one can take it away from me..."
It's not an "it", it's a "Who".
Christian first, everthing else second.
"and the courtly splendor of a faded Byzantium continues to haunt the East."
Oh, good heavens!
But, please, must you lump Baptists in the same group with Methodists and Budhists? Have some decency!
What if the person who exacts from you vows of conformity to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church -- what if he himself admits that there is not standard by which such conformity can be measured?
For non-anglicans, I had to declare two times -- I had to sign, and my signature had to be witnessed by two people -- that I would so conform.
Then I found that nearly everyone thinks that, despite constitution, canons, rubrics, and the rest, that what actually constitutes doctrine, discipline and worship is anyone's guess. If Bishop Pike becomes a necromatic spiritualist, if Bishop Spong denies the Resurrection, well, "We are not a confessional church."
If, despite the rubrics, a priest flushes the consecrated wine down a common sink, another priest pours it on the flowers, and another feeds the consecrated host to dogs, and no one is there to rein him in, then there is no standard of "worship" by which we can say that one thing is acceptable and another not.
And, as for discipline, as far as I can tell, the only thing that really gets Episcopalians looking at their canonical obligations, the standard of their professions of obedience, is real estate. If it looks like dissenters are going to take their real estate with them, THEN a bishop will get rowdy.
To follow Christ is to walk out of your will into His. To follow Christ means living like a stranger in a strange land.
But to be an Episcopalian seems to mean to cling to the way "we did it when I was young," and, in general, to present one's own opinion as settled doctrine of the Church Catholic -- anything as long as it suits one's own preferences and whims.
As a Catholic, I ache for those days when, in great, if not entire, sincerity I thought I was consecrating the sacrament and presiding at a miracle as a priest in the Episcopal Church. But in the tawdry hymnody and irritating bureaucracy of the Catholic Church I find some security in knowing that inputting up with this stuff, I am walking out of my will, challenged to practice humility and patience, and blessed beyond my expectaion or hope with the Lord himself, pouring out his life for me.
It hurt, it still hurts, but it was worth it.
I always appreciate your posting these Episcopal/Anglican threads, sionnsar. Keep up the good work!
IOW, his bottom-line reasoning for rejecting both Rome and Constantinople revolves around pride -- to accept either of them would mean admitting that his ministry was illicit and invalid, and that's something up with which he will not put, because it's all about him.
St. Paul said he accounted all things as rubbish next to the surpassing knowledge of his Lord, Jesus Christ. He didn't say, "Well, I would have become a Christian, but that would have meant admitting that my former life as a Jewish rabbi was not really serving God, and I can't stand that idea."
Ugh, what twaddle.
Well, yeah, and all of us laymen who thought we were receiving the Body and Blood of Christ all these years had to acknowledge that, no, we weren't.
But the accident of being born into a particular denomination is not destiny. "By their fruits shall ye know them," and it is clear that ECUSA has borne bitter fruit.
It's hard to admit that one has been wrong (or, if you prefer, misled, or that your church has been cut out from under you by heretics.) But, really, the alternative is to stay in a church that has clearly rejected the Gospel and tradition . . . you just have to swallow your pride and take that first big scary step into the waters of the Tiber. (Come on in, the water's fine!)