I wonder how many dollars the Rwandan Church leadership get for their mission assistance?

This is barely a step up from episcopal vagantes.

Meanwhile a denomination is born which affirms the 39 articles in their " grammatical and literal sense" and has several dioceses , parishes and Bishops who pray to the Virgin Mary, and for the dead.. claim to offer the sacrifice of Mass and worship the consecrated elements..admit churches set up with statues ..yet the Diocese of Sydney is behind all this! The standing Committee of Sydney has just endorsed ACNA.

Indeed ACNA proudly proclaims we are Biblically orthodox.

Its like finding the British National Party
( neo-fascist party) is funded from North Korea!

Is Ruanda's action here a sign of the irrational actions we might expect to come from the leaders of the African Provinces who have decided to back up the dissidents in North America? Akinola's recent advice that African Churches could no longer take an active role in headship of the ACNA group would seem not to have been taken on board by all of his compatriots.

It would seem that such irrationality might yet thwart the ambitions of the newly-emerging fiefdom of Robbie Duncan and Co., who must be desperately trying to unify the radically divergent praxis and theological objectives of the 'partners in mission' struggling for the premiership of the hoped for ACNA Church.

Ambition is not limited to Western Church ideology, and the sooner the pot-pouri of dissident groups contained within this new sodality become aware of this fact, the sooner they will realise the futility of trying to cordinate the culture of rebellion.

Not much gracious restraint around in Rwanda, then.

"affirms the 39 articles in their " grammatical and literal sense""

If I'm not mistaken, this is the language which describes how fundamentalists read Scripture. Taken to its extreme, it commits the reader to a flat earth that is about 4,000 years old, around which the sun orbits, among other things.

But how would this affect how one reads the 39 Articles? Is there a symbolic way to read On Predestination? An ungrammatical way to read it?

I'm serious - if anyone can enlighten me about the use of that phrase regarding the 39, I'd like to hear from you.

....and the web address is so close to acne.org ...there is Monty Python potential there....

You have a point there ;=)

Will ACNA have any priests or deacons, or will all their clergy be bishops?

(For that matter, will they have any laypeople, or will all of them soon be consecrated, too?)

Cynthia, in my opinion the language of fundamentalism "plain and literal sense" is applied to the Bible in reaction to some of the 19th century developments in Biblical Criticism to which Fundamentalism was responding. In the same way, an urge to reading the Articles in this "plain sense" way is probably a reaction to the inventive readings developed by the Oxford Movement (also in the 19th c.) that allowed Anglo-Catholics to continue to do the very things the Articles were intended to suppress.

However, given the strange mix of High, Broad and "Snake-belly" Low in the present ACNA combine, it seems to me that the forces of denial and accommodation (to say nothing of fantasy) are just as much at work.

Cynthia Gilliat wrote:
I'm serious - if anyone can enlighten me about the use of that phrase regarding the 39, I'd like to hear from you.

---

I'm not really sure what the ACNA folks mean... but in 1841 such a declaration would certainly have been directed against Newman's "Tract 90" (http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract90/). Newman's tract is a "fun" read for someone who enjoys seeing a brilliant mind try to make a text say the exact opposite of what it actually says!

As someone else pointed out above, the ACNA folk are going to have a tough time deciding on what the "grammatical and literal sense" of the 39 Articles actually is when they have some members who, for example, think the Articles allow prayer to saints and others who think they prohibit it.

Don't they also insist on the 1662 BCP? ... where we find this rubric: "...lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one."

Are "Bishops" Iker and Schofield REALLY going to claim that they affirm the teaching of this rubric????? Methinks that were perjury, to be abhorded of all faithful Christians!

“...pray to the Virgin Mary, and for the dead.. claim to offer the sacrifice of Mass and worship the consecrated elements..admit churches set up with statues ..yet the Diocese of Sydney is behind all this! The standing Committee of Sydney has just endorsed ACNA.”-Robert Ian Williams

Robert Ian Williams’ formulations above are among the reasons why I’m an ANGLO Catholic and not a ROMAN one!

“Pray to” the Virgin Mary? I have no problem ASKING the Blessed Virgin to PRAY FOR ME. “Claim” to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, Robert? Of course, Anglicans OFFER the Eucharistic sacrifice. “Worship the consecrated elements”? I worship CHRIST who is as truly and spiritually present in the Holy Communion on earth as He is in Heaven. “Set up statues”? Episcopal churches have “set up statues” since BEFORE SYDNEY HAD CHURCH BUILDINGS.

Cynthia, you might be interested in Newman's "Tract 90," in which he examines the Articles in their "grammatical and literal sense." At least, what he considers to be their grammatical and literal sense. I suspect that ACNA is engaging in a bit of fudging by the use of the phrase in question, to allow both Catholics and Evangelicals to claim adherence to the Articles.

http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract90/

"....and the web address is so close to acne.org"

Ah, but it is also close to acme.org, which is, of course, the web address for the famous Acme Company. It provided Wiley Coyote with all the fizzling rockets, squiblike TNT, and other gadgets that fizzled as he attempted to get Road Runner.

Thanks for reference to Tract 90 - last time I read Newman was in a grad school course in Victorian prose, so I'm a little rusty. It wasn't assigned to the class, but was in the anthology we used, and I was curious and plowed through it. Thanks for the enlightenment.

Kurt,
I think you'll find that there are "Anglo-Catholics" who would claim to agree with the ROMAN Catholics against you on all the points you listed. Unless I am mistaken, this would be true of the two soon-to-be ACNA bishops I named above.

Be that as it may... the curious thing is that there are folks soon to become part of ACNA with those bishops who would assert that it is WRONG to ask dead people for their prayers, who would insist that the Eucharist is ONLY "our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" and NOT the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and who would condemn any act of adoration directed at the consecrated Bread and Wine (see the rubric from the 1662 BCP I quoted above), and who would condemn the lighting of candles and praying before statues as idolatry. All of the things they reject and condemn are things these bishops approve and practice.

When ACNA fiddles the plain and literal meanings of words, it is just because they are generous believers trying to get along with one another in a new conservative venture. If or when anybody else does it, fie on them, pagans, modernists, and deniers of Jesus of Nazareth.

On the ground, there will be plenty of fodder for food fights in ACNA, provided their swell habit of hanging together in common cause against (any number of different) enemy targets fails to actually cohere them across their own internal hot button distinctions.

ACNA is engaged in the odd bit, trying to tear down and rend global Anglican big tents, while at the same time needing to use a practical interation of a typical big tent strategy, layered over with subscriptions to theology and ethics which solemnly preach that big tents are anathema and unfaithful. Go figure.

Re "literal and gramamtical": Newman is but quoting "His Majesty's Declaration," that prefaces the Articles:

That therefore in these both curious and unhappy differences, which have for so many hundred years, in different times and places, exercised the Church of Christ, We will, that all further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in the holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them. And that no man hereafter shall either print or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and Full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.

“Kurt, I think you'll find that there are "Anglo-Catholics" who would claim to agree with the ROMAN Catholics against you on all the points you listed. Unless I am mistaken, this would be true of the two soon-to-be ACNA bishops I named above.”--William K

You very well may be right, William. It’s just that American Anglo Catholicism/High Church traditions are a bit different from those of the UK. Anglo-Papalism, for example, has never been a strong trend here or had the influence it has in England. And while the Oxford Movement was generally welcomed and supported here by High Churchmen and Churchwomen, there were definite disagreements expressed during those years with certain of Newman’s formulations, including some of those on the Real Presence. (Even at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin Times Square, I have never run into anyone who worships THE ELEMENTS of the Holy Mass, rather than worshiping CHRIST PRESENT in the “creatures of bread and wine.”)

Praying for the dead has a long history in the American Church, even though specific prayers were not introduced into the Prayer Book until 1928. (Bishop Seabury was one who prayed for the dead and openly advocated for it in the 18th century, I believe) and we have had religious statures in some of our churches since at least the 1740s.

I have discussed here before the American reluctance regarding the Articles of Religion, which were completely omitted from our first Authorized Prayer Book of 1789. And I don’t believe we ever had an anti-adoration Rubric such as the one in the 1662 English PB.

Kurt, actually, I'm a member of the Episcopal Church, and an Anglo-Catholic, and I'm referring to views of (some) Anglo-Catholics in the Episcopal Church... and some of those now out or about to be out (Iker and Schofield, for example). Sorry that that wasn't clear.

Your point about the Articles of Religion and the rubric of the 1662 BCP is, of course, absolutely right. But that's just my point. This new ACNA organization is delaring the Articles and the 1662 as their basis of faith... which is quite "un-American"... and an odd thing for Anglo-Catholics to do unless they are willing to commit ecclesial perjury.

“Your point about the Articles of Religion and the rubric of the 1662 BCP is, of course, absolutely right. But that's just my point. This new ACNA organization is declaring the Articles and the 1662 as their basis of faith... which is quite "un-American"... and an odd thing for Anglo-Catholics to do unless they are willing to commit ecclesial perjury.”--WilliamK

Yes, William, it is an odd thing for American Anglo Catholics to do, isn’t it? But Sydney (which no doubt is bankrolling ACNA at least in part), interprets the Articles in a Calvinist way, don’t they? Very odd indeed.

(As an aside concerning Episcopalians who hold to the Roman interpretation of the Real Presence: I don’t doubt that William is correct, and that they do exist; it’s just that I personally have never met one. One would imagine the Roman interpretation is particularly held by Anglo-Papalists, and I have never met one of these folks in New York City. I guess I’d have to go to Texas.)

Sydney interpret the 39 articles in the way they were understood for the first 300 years of Anglicanism.

In 1559, altars were destroyed and replaced by wooden tables in the chancel.The minister no longer officiating facing eastwards.

Tabernacles pyx's, water stoups were destroyed.
A few of the latter , embedded ino walls of medeval churches survive.Some of the murals have been uncovered from the lime wash.

Wall murals whitewashed. Statues , crucifixes
( apart from one in Elizabeth's private chapel )burnt and eucharistic vestments cut up for dresses for clergy wives.

To re-focus the discussion somewhat - Does the statement from the Evangelical Alliance that they are in communion with this new body and its new bishops carry any weight? Can a suffragan bishop, like the Bishop of Lewes, declare himself in communion without the direct consent of his diocesan bishop?

So, RIW, are you implying that this therefor nullifies any claim Anglicans might have to catholic tradition? So, let's look at Rome's abandonment of basic humanity in her treatment of her opponents, of native people in the Americas and beyond, her dividing up the world between the kings of France and Spain, and on and on. Can we say that such obviously unChristian behaviour, some of which continues into our own time, nullifies Rome's right to call herself Christian? It would seem tit for tat: stop looking catholic for 300 years, never call yourself catholic again, stop behaving like Christians for longer than that, never call yourselves Christian again. Or does Rome get to make mistakes with impunity because the bishop of Rome has some sort of direct line to the Throne?

Robert Ian Williams says:

“Sydney interpret the 39 articles in the way they were understood for the first 300 years of Anglicanism.’

This is Sydney’s CLAIM. The REALITY is that the Articles have always been interpreted variously by different factions (e.g. Low Church, High Church, Broad Church) since they were written.

“In 1559, altars were destroyed and replaced by wooden tables in the chancel. The minister no longer officiating facing eastwards.”

That may have been true in the most Protestant leaning parishes, but the Laudian reforms of the early 1600s decisively reversed this.

“Tabernacles pyx's, water stoups were destroyed. A few of the latter , embedded ino walls of medeval churches survive. Some of the murals have been uncovered from the lime wash.”

You contradict yourself here, Robert. Baptismal fonts in Anglican churches have traditionally been at the rear of the nave, and as in my parish, are often used in place of Holy Water stoups. Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament was not widespread in the American Church until after 1850, but prior to that it was still considered a "received custom" in some parishes. In these a portion of the Precious Blood was placed in a large glass receptacle which was mounted and locked in an ambry or small closet, in the wall of the sacristy.

“Wall murals whitewashed. Statues , crucifixes (apart from one in Elizabeth's private chapel) burnt and eucharistic vestments cut up for dresses for clergy wives.”

Again, the extremes of the Puritans were reversed in the early 1600s by Archbishop Laud and his followers, who used incense, crucifixes, statues, copes, etc.