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The Lord’s Prayer is the third topic examined in traditional Anglican catechisms. In the 1979 Prayer Book it comes under the heading “Prayer and Worship” (p. 856). The 1979 catechism defines prayer as “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.” The Book does qualify this definition by instructing the reader in the types of prayer: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, oblation, intercession and petition. (Note that imprecatory prayer is not listed, although I suspect certain revisionist leaders are presently practicing it!) The 1979 definition is problematic because is attempts to merge two classical definitions of prayer...

From The Christian Challenge, we have this article about the Traditional Anglican Communion and the Pope:TAC Sees New Pope As Sign Of Hope For Ties With Holy See Choice Of Ratzinger Buoys Orthodox Anglicans Generally By Auburn Faber Traycik The Christian Challenge April 30, 2005 Archbishop John Hepworth, head of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the largest international Continuing Anglican fellowship, says the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope “fills us with hope” for progress toward Christian unity, particularly with the Roman Catholic Church. The selection of the new Pope Benedict XVI came shortly after TAC leaders from Australia...

Several things will happen within the next eighteen months or so. (So far, I’m on safe ground.)One seems increasingly likely: the Episcopal Church USA will find a polite and careful way of declining to accede to the Windsor Report. It will take this as a matter of justice, of the development of doctrine, of the Holy Spirit doing a new thing, of resistance to bullying. It seems moderately likely that the rest of the Anglican Communion will determine that the ECUSA has not adequately attended to its requests (with some resistance from parts of the UK, and I don’t know...

The reality of the rift in the worldwide Anglican Church over the ordination of homosexual bishops and the sanctioning of same sex marriage is now being realised among local Anglicans. An invitation extended by the Anglican Bishop of Trinidad and Tobago, Calvin Bess, to Bishop John Gladwin of the United Kingdom to visit Trinidad has been withdrawn, after it was learnt that the latter has expressed solidarity with the pro-gay Anglican churches in Canada and the United States. In 2003, the Episcopal Church of the United States ordained openly gay Gene Robinson as a bishop, and the diocese of New...

This interview of the Bishop of Pittsburgh in The Living Church is, maybe, a hint of how things will go.  The Rebel Alliance seems to want to make it clear that it's ECUSA that's leaving the Anglican Communion, not the Rebel Allliance leaving ECUSA.  The letter to Rowan Willliams is especially interesting for it's signatories.  Some of the bishops are well known for their orthodoxy, but have been unwilling to join the Network or to give up on keeping ECUSA afloat.  It looks like the last House of Bishops meeting was a bit polarizing.  I'm not as sanguine as Bishop...

If you have not encountered the writings of Huw Raphael, an Orthodox convert who had formerly been in ECUSA as (in his own words) "a sexually active gay man who wanted to be an Episcopal priest", you will find his writings to be quite moving and powerful. His I was in Hell is a good beginning, and his essays on Ontology (first essay, second essay, and third essay) are most profound. I commend these to you.

Today there are two Episcopal Churches existing under one roof. One version advocates a contemporary political and social agenda and the other advances the everlasting, and unalterable, word of God that is often found to be inconvenient and difficult to follow in the 21st century. The rip in the fabric of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA), began to open at least as far back as the 1960s when California Bishop James Pike decided the Holy Trinity did not exist and that there had been no Virgin Birth. Nevertheless, he also decided to remain at his...

Joy is a strange thing. When you least expect it, it pops up. When you chase after it, it hides from you. As many of you will know from reading the North Shore News, we the people of St. Simon's have been evicted from our own building and property as of May 31st 2005. After fifty-five years of worshipping at 1384 Deep Cove Road, we have been thrown out at the stroke of a pen by diocesan officials threatening to intimidate and bankrupt us with endless lawsuits. Despite our holding title deed to the property and building, despite our being...

Lawyers for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and three breakaway parishes met in mediation but failed to settle a lawsuit stemming from a dispute over who owns church property, an attorney said. The suit, filed by the diocese against St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood will now proceed through the court, Daniel Lula, who represents the parishes, said Thursday. Lula declined to comment on discussion that took place during mediation, citing a state law that holds such sessions confidential. The suits against the churches have been...

Main Entry: pri'mate Etymology: Middle English primat, from Old French, from Medieval Latin primat-, primas archbishop, from Latin, leader, from primus Date: 13th century 1 often capitalized : a bishop who has precedence in a province, group of provinces, or a nation2 archaic : one first in authority or rank : LEADER 3 [New Latin Primates, from Latin, plural of primat-, primas] : any of an order (Primates) of mammals comprising humans, apes, monkeys, and related forms (as lemurs and tarsiers) -pri'mate-ship \-*ship\ noun --pri-ma'tial \pr*-*m*-sh*l\ adjective As the church’s governing council prepares to meet this month to consider...

Clifton resident Don Baker, who has lived in a committed relationship with another gay man for six years, thinks conservative Christians should get their minds out of the gutter."It doesn't matter that we're supposed to be brothers and sisters in Christ," he said. "They only imagine, to their horror, what we do in our bedrooms."Baker and his partner, Roy Hardison, have found a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church - specifically, the Church of Our Savior in Mount Auburn, where they have been members for five years.They're dismayed at the ongoing conflict between the Episcopal Church in this country and...

Ecumenical delegations from the Vatican and the Anglican Communion Office will launch ‘Seattle Statement’ 16 May (ACNS) An international delegation of Anglicans and Roman Catholics will convene in Seattle, USA, 16 May to release a joint statement of understanding on the place of Mary in the doctrine and life of the Church. The document, entitled Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, represents the first major agreed statement by a formal international dialogue between two Christian world communions on this important aspect of Christian faith and devotion.The statement draws together the fruits of five years of work by the Anglican-Roman Catholic...

A discussion starter Since World War II there have been many changes or developments within the Anglican Way. In the West, and particularly in North America, these have been continuous and consistent. A decision was made, or a route was adopted, at the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century by the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. to become relevant within and acceptable to the changing culture and “the spirit of the 1960s”. From this move, which was as much being caught up in the wind of change as making a decision to take a new path, has...

Frank Griswold recently signed his name to the following statement: On March 8 we, as leaders of the Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, issued a joint statement questioning the priorities of President Bush’s 2006 Federal Budget. We remembered the Gospel story of Lazarus and the rich man and noted that the 2006 budget had much for the rich man but little for Lazarus. It was our hope that Congress would take action on behalf of "Lazarus." Sadly, all indications are...

Frank Griswold's not the only reason many of us have been paying an inordinate amount of attention to the Catholics lately.  The bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada manifest a truly impressive mendacity all their own.  Here, they respond to the Windsor Report and the Newry primates statement: We affirm our continuing membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Our Church regularly supports the work of the Communion and a number of Canadians have served and continue to serve in significant roles through the work of the Anglican Communion Office in London, England. In partnership with other Provinces we remain...

A colleague asks what smooth word we would use while the rest of the world calls our departure from the Anglican fellowship "excommunication." That is easy to answer. ECUSA would not be excommunicated; it would be liberated. I would hate to think of our severance from the worldwide Anglican Communion -- but in another sense, the separation would be exciting. Faith is not defined by the Anglican Consultative Council or the archbishop of Canterbury or an angry group of primates from Africa or Asia. Faith is the embodiment of deep-seated belief in God, and it is spread through works and...

The news from Canada was disappointing.The Canadian House of Bishops actually did less than ECUSA did. Hard to believe.“There [will] be no new initiatives, no new parishes, no new dioceses participating in such blessings until the year 2007, and that’s when the whole Anglican Church of Canada gathers from across the country,” said Primate Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, the head of the Anglican Church in Canada.

I suppose that, to one degree or another, we all act as if the world is divided into camps of good and bad people, and we all tend to defend our imagined membership in the camp of the good. Unfortunately, this is not harmless self-deception, but rather it is a deadly serious theological issue. If I believe that I am basically a good person, and if I believe that you are basically a good person, then I will find it difficult to incorporate into my belief system the notion that we both are in danger of God’s condemnation. I won’t...

The most easily-accessible format for this statement (by that, I mean HTML) that I have found is on Titusonenine, which also includes comments by readers of that blog. Christopher Johnson has done his usual masterful work in exposing the fallacies behind the reasoning in this statement, so I will confine my comments to the issue they have raised about alleged Donatism on the part of those who are declaring "impaired communion" with ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada. The statement says about this:The Question of impaired Fellowship Why do some bishops break communion and refuse collegiality as though they...

The Ten Commandments has had a place in Anglican catechesis since the first Book of Common Prayer (1549). Here is a portion of the form found in that Book:Question: You sayde that your Godfathers and Godmothers dyd promiyse for you that ye should kepe Goddes commaundementes. Tell me how many there bee.Aunswere: Tenne.Question: Whiche be they?Aunswere: Thou shalte haue none other Gods but me. II. Thou shalte not make to thyselfe anye grauen image, nor the likenesse of any thing that is in heaven aboue, or in the earth beneath, nor in the water under the earth: thou shalt not...