Posted on 12/10/2011 12:26:17 PM PST by marshmallow
Will the sun set on the Anglican communion?
The archbishop of Canterbury is going to resign next year. At least that’s the story making the rounds of newspapers in London, and the interesting part is not that the 61-year-old Rowan Williams should be willing to give up another decade in the job. Or even, if the Telegraph is right, that the clergy and his fellow bishops are working to push him out.
No, the interesting news about the looming resignation is how little attention anyone appears to be paying to it. The Church of England just doesn’t seem to matter all that much, fading from the world’s stage only slightly more slowly than the British Empire that planted it across the globe.
Theological consequences will follow the dwindling of Anglican identity—the claim, ever since Queen Elizabeth I, that the Church of England represents the great middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism. Ecclesiological consequences, as well, will follow the end of Anglican unity: the disappearance of a coherent, worldwide denomination, led by the archbishop of Canterbury, for those who hold a certain moderate form of Christian belief.
Christianity will survive in other forms, of course, both theologically and denominationally. In the long run, the great tragedy of the fading of Canterbury and the looming breakup of the Anglican communion may be the geopolitical consequences—fraying the already weak ties between the global South and Western civilization.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
The COE should be abolished before it becomes Islamic
The Church of England has become irrelevant because it let itself become that way, with little or no help from the Royal Family to boot. The political class of England, er Great Britain, have been, as always, politicians and self-serving socialists since the end of WWII, and before that (sans Churchill)creating a servile, socialist state with the government replacing religion as its source of strength and comfort instead of belief in a higher being. Well, the chickens have come home to roost, the socialist system in Europe is broke, the mohammedans are pressing their barbaric system of demands on a weak-kneed, jelly fish people that sent these bastards scurrying under Richard the Lion Heart centuries before. I remain in disbelief as this sorry state continues to unravel and pray for a miracle that the British people (the non-muslim ones) grow a back bone and kick these sorry enemies of the West back into the hell holes they came from. I suspect it will take a near revolution and societal implosion before a religious revival and rebirth (Christian that is) occurs in Britain,or the whole of Europe for that matter, but I am not holding my breath. How it could have come to this, I look at the heads of government and the Church of England as the primary culprits in their own demise. Shame, shame, shame on them, while muslims, atheists, communists, and the rest of the slimy ilk that wait in the shadows to take a piece of this once great, but now withering, dying country and make it their own. God help the remaining Brits in their up and coming battle. I hope its a tremendous victory, regardless of how long it takes, rather than a whimper, surrender, then death of a once great civilization.
They lost relevance ever since Richard Burton got killed being their archbishop.
I was going to say why don’t they just appoint a Mullah and get it over with?
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
It’s already happening in my opinion.
...the interesting part is not that the 61-year-old Rowan Williams should be willing to give up another decade in the job. Or even, if the Telegraph is right, that the clergy and his fellow bishops are working to push him out. No, the interesting news about the looming resignation is how little attention anyone appears to be paying to it.Thanks marshmallow.
It’s been a vacant see for many centuries.
As a proud American descended from oppressed Irish peasants who were intentionally starved and dispossessed for centuries by the British Monarchs in concert with the Church of England, permit me to respectfully dissent from your unreserved wishes for a smashing British victory in the upcoming struggle.
Perhaps I lack imagination, but how could it possibly have gone worse for Ireland the past few centuries? Even the Turks weren't that cruel to the Serbs, as horrible as they acted in the Balkans. Serbia was never as oppressed as Catholic Ireland. Will Durant wrote a thing about this. The Irish were easily among the most oppressed people in the world.
As far as I know, the Church of England has heaped abuse upon itself for the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, with which it was only tangentially involved, but it has never uttered a word of collective repentance for the unspeakable atrocities it very directly inflicted on the Irish people.
So please forgive me for not sharing your enthusiasm for a speedy British victory in the looming cultural showdown.
As I was taught from an early age "England's misfortune is Ireland's opportunity."
Perhaps now Pope Benedict XVI can restore the See of Canterbury and formally grant the Archbishop of Westminster that title.
It was Peter O'Toole's fault. I knew he was a villain from the start - he had a British accent, f'Petessake.
Well, the Church of England is certainly in danger of falling apart, although I don’t think that the retirement of the present Archbishop of Canterbury would have much effect on that, one way or the other.
Rowan Williams was appointed by the Queen, but at the suggestion of Tony Blair, who wanted to push homosexuality in the Church. Williams did so, when he first came in, but it produced so many negative reactions that he was forced to pull back, and the gay bishop in question resigned.
Unfortunately, the Catholic bishops in England have also suffered from malaise—the dissidence that followed Vatican II. For a while, there were actually more church-going Catholics in England than Anglicans, but now both churches are in bad shape.
Well, something will come of it, God willing. It is not widely realized that the Anglican church was virtually dead in the 18th Century, a mere shell of a church, but it came back to life after the appearance of John Wesley on the scene. He not only founded Methodism, but brought new life back into the Anglican Church by his example, subsequently strengthened and re-directed by the Oxford Movement.
I should add that there is likely a connnection between this rumored retirement by Rowan Williams and the proposal to make the Archbishop Head of the Church in place of the Monarch.
Presumably, if that is done, it will be done by Queen Elizabeth herself. And I can see why she would not wish to hand over governance of the C of E to Rowan Williams. Whether her own choice will be much better remains to be seen.
Peter O'Toole was really a poor king. How the heck he got elected king is beyond me!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.