Mistaken



I thought this was going to be the last entry in this category. Then, I received this great little book for Christmas. It is a collection of letters and stories of priests (mostly AngloCatholic) and other Anglicans who have converted to Orthodoxy. I highly recommend the entire book, and could go wild with quotes. Of course, it wouldn't take long to violate the fair use provisions of copyright law. So, I'll just settle for a couple. The reasons I like them is that they capture much of the thought processes I had to address. They aren't necessarily the gentlest statements. The authors try, but there is no gentle way to tell someone else they might be in the wrong place. So, here is a quote from Fr. Olnhausen, a priest in Wisconsin:

"My chief message to my dear Anglican friends is that we're alive and well and enthusiastic about living in the Holy Orthodox Church. I wish you were here, too. I respect and admire those of you who are suffering and fighting for the Faith in the Episcopal Church. For purposes not clear to me, God may have some reason for keeping you there. Who am I to pass judgment?

But isn't it obvious that Anglicanism itself has failed? Why do you want to preserve a system that has become a hindrance to the Faith? Instead of being consumed by trying to defend yourself from a jaded, increasingly post-Christian Anglicanism, you could be working to convert people to Orthodoxy, to a Church which defends and supports her members in the Faith."

Then, the following, from Fr. Reeves, a priest in Texas:

"The theological liberalism of the seminary was not the only difficulty for me. Another deeply disturbing fact was that Anglicanism, unlike the other major Churches of the Reformation, was not a confessional body. It had no Book of Concord, no Westminster Confession. Culture was its glue; the via media (the middle road) its hermeneutic. The Creed was but a relative statement of faith. A Church which allowed a Bishop Pike to function with a mere censure after denying the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, and the Resurrection was a Church which was more concerned about compromise than truth...

The Elizabethan Settlement still prevailed, whether the matters were political, doctrinal, or moral. Revelation, at least Anglican-style, was culturally determined. As the culture continued to decline, so did Anglicanism's message. Abortion, homosexuality, and inclusive language all determined the content, since the Church had to let the world set the agenda for her. The Anglican ethos was founded on a matter of political correctness in the sixteenth century. For me it became painfully obvious that political correctness remained its dominant feature four hundred years later."

Posted: Thu - January 4, 2007 at 11:12 PM        

©