Witch’s Head Nebula-NASA
I’m not sure what to call this post since it is not an exposé. It’s merely informational and I would be delighted if folks could add to the information herein. This all started yesterday when the mysterious Jerome “Knower of Interesting Information” dropped the following picture from the Diocese of the West Coast (ACNA) in a comment.
This was accompanied by the following comment.
The good bishop appears decidedly uninterested in the man lying prostrate before him but that is just my observation.
Anglicans are on The Gospel Coalition
Let’s back up. What’s going on with Ray Ortlund Junior? Isn’t he one of the merry band of TGC boys and former pastor of Immanuel Nashville of Acts 29 fame? He is TGC Council Emeritus. It appears that the Anglican Church North America is making its way onto the governing entities of the TGC
Jerome notes the following:
Did you know that Anglicans in North America are considered Reformed by the TGC folks?
Ray Ortlund is now under the direction of the Right Rev. Clark Lowenfield, Bishop of the Western Gulf Coast ACNA yet attending the nonAnglican Immanuel Nashville.
Ortlund made the following announcement in June 2021.
- Since her first public ministry on Easter Sunday 2008, Immanuel Church Nashville has experienced the most striking, sustained blessing of the Lord I have ever seen.
- The Acts 29 Network encouraged us all along the way. We love all our friends in A29. Then in 2019 Pastor TJ Tims received the Lead Pastor position at Immanuel, with my joyful support. The church continues to bear fruit, and I love worshiping there when I am in town.
- That is why I am thrilled to announce a new path of service now opening up to me. The Right Rev’d Clark W. P. Lowenfield, Bishop of the Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast in the Anglican Church in North America, has graciously called me to serve him as a Catechist and Canon Theologian. He has kindly extended the same call to my dear friend, The Rev’d Sam Allberry.
Read this next part carefully.
- Jani and I will keep serving with Renewal Ministries, and we’ll keep worshiping at Immanuel Church. But now I rejoice in this added dimension of ministry within the ACNA.
- So now, to my amazement, I find myself “striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” with so many in the Anglican Church whom I have long admired – like J. C. Ryle, Charles Simeon, C. S. Lewis, John Stott, Festo Kivengere, Alec Motyer, Derek Kidner, J. I. Packer and Bruce Waltke. I am unworthy.
I’ll get to the Sam Allberry stunner in a minute. In the meantime, Ortlund is going to attend Immanuel Nashville and still stay Anglican? Why not join an ACNA church?
Immanuel Nashville and the now Anglican Ortlund who is submitted to an Anglican bishop but attending a church made up of all denominations.
Yep, this is odd. Here is a link to Immanuel Nashville’s doctrinal statement which provides a clue.
Immanuel Nashville is a gospel-centered church located in Nashville, Tennessee. Our beliefs at Immanuel are mainstream, biblical, Jesus-focused. We include people of many denominations, and everyone belongs, because we keep Jesus first.
This is an Acts29 church but it appears one can join the church and join lots of other churches and denominations and still be a member. So, color me confused. The TGC dudes love the authority angle. Who is in authority over Ortlund? The disinterested-looking bishop or Pastor Tims of Immanuel Nashville? Will there be a fight over whose authority is over the other authority? Or is this allowed because Ortlund is one of the folks who never have a problem with his church leaders?
Besides Ortlund, guess who’s coming to Immanuel Nashville, the church for all denominations? Sam Allberry! Russell Moore is there as well.
“These guys are now “leaders in residence” which is fancy wording for “We need to show how important our church is.” Somehow, I don’t see Allberry wrestling over deep theological implications at Immanuel Nashville. It probably means they get paid to be famous. Can anyone confirm how much they are being paid or is this an unpaid position? I’ve know that Moore has been there awhile, having left his SBC church.
Somehow I think something more is going on and that is why this needs to be watched.
Is Sam Allberry ditching his allegiance to the queen and the Church of England and coming soon to Nashville?
Here is Allberry’s bio at the ERLC.
He worked at St Ebbe’s Church in Oxford where he oversaw the ministry to university students and then at St Mary’s Church in Maidenhead where he has been based since 2008. He is an ordained minister in the Church of England and was recently elected to serve on its governing body, the General Synod.
I went over to St Mary’s Church in Maidenhead and his picture is gone.
And here is a tweet that Jerome found. When someone asked Allberry where he was, he replied:
It’s complicated? He’s going slow? How? I think it’s fascinating. I’ve never been to a church for ALL denominations. I wonder why he left the COE behind?
PS Barnabas Piper has been promoted to a pastor at this church for ALL denominations.
“So, color me confused. The TGC dudes love the authority angle. Who is in authority over Ortlund? The disinterested-looking bishop or Pastor Tims of Immanuel Nashville? Will there be a fight over whose authority is over the other authority? Or is this allowed because Ortlund is one of the folks who never have a problem with his church leaders?”
———————————
One of the main reasons the 9Marx gospelly boys give for church membership contracts is they must know who they have to give an account to God for. Quite a conundrum for Roy, I would think.
“Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you”
Hebrews 13:17 RSV
Color me confused indeed…
Todd Wilhelm,
Jeffrey Chalmers,
I can hear it now. Pastor Tims: “You must submit.” Ortlund: “No I don’t. I answer to the disinterested bishop.” The disinterested bishop “Who’s Ortlund?”
“Leaders in Residence” is a weird concept. Are these gentlemen staff of Immanuel Nashville? If not, whom are they leading? It does sound like “Celebrities associated with us” would be more accurate.
A Catholic parish with a spacious rectory, as some older establishments have, will sometimes have a priest “in residence” who is not parish staff. Maybe he’s from out of town, working on a book, elderly but not ready for a nursing home. That priest will help out to the extent he can with confessions, holidays, etc. That doesn’t seem to be the situation with Immanuel Nashville.
On the one hand, I think a “multi-denominational” church could be a good thing. It’s not as if Jesus organized our present American denominations. On the other hand, it could get complicated.
Disregard the PR, i.e. promotions.
Follow the money.
Todd Wilhelm,
The leaders need a brohood, to keep collecting $$$ and stay in business, in power, in charge. They circle their wagons and fortify each others’ positions of power.
The nobodies, the rest of us, need a covenant, to keep donating our wages from our real jobs, thus to keep the power elite in power and well-funded.
Dee, re picture the presiding prelate is probably looking at a person who is asking “Do you accept our candidate for whatever rank of clergy”, or reading some Scripture or a prayer. At least he is (at that moment) avoiding the sickly interpersonal intensity I’ve seen broadcast from elsewhere.
On the other hand, sacraments should only be as a far deeper kind of communion would be doing. Sacraments are however now “in” because they are wordless memes, ideal for button pressing (a chic, faux-existentialist, mid century take on structuralism).
Ceremonial doesn’t equate to anti-Calvinism.
Believe you me it’s not a good thing, it has got complicated already. Sentimentalism won’t cut the mustard once whatever cookie starts crumbling. As Dee pointed out theology is now officially out of the palace attic window instead of open to beneficial examination by free pew goers. The prevalent, bad kind of distress never was about interdenominational differences, that was pretext.
A few hundred years ago, theology and mechanics (the latter affording logic = honesty) were the subjects in which the humane and humble helped their peers pull themselves up by their bootstraps, literally recreating civilisation after the depredations of the first Cromwell and the “Renaissance” Popes. Mechanics disappeared long ago . . .
Michael in UK,
ref my last two paras. I meant to put “theologies” not the singular. Apology.
‘Leaders in residence’! These men are just too important to simply take an ordinary place in the pew, don’t you know? These men have a need to be recognised, deferred to, lauded. Equally, Immanuel Church enhances its own status by letting everyone know that they have Christian celebrities in their congregation – they aren’t just an ordinary church, don’t you know?
All of this is in stark contrast to the attitude of the real Immanuel – God WITH US – who eschewed status and ‘made himself nothing’ (Philippians 2).
I am led to believe that Sam Allberry is attempting to move permanently to Nashville USA, however may still be back and forth to the UK at present due to visa difficulties.
Does anyone still really not see the $$$ are buying BigEVA? I agree Ava, “follow the money”.
“The good bishop appears decidedly uninterested in the man lying prostrate before him but that is just my observation.” (Dee)
The man is just a lowly church planter … why should the kingpin pay any attention to him?! The good bishop is probably reading something much more interesting than another servant bowing at his feet, perhaps college basketball scores. So much for ACNA pomp and ceremony.
“It appears that the Anglican Church North America is making its way onto the governing entities of the TGC” (Dee)
Great! Maybe all the New Calvinists will migrate to ACNA and leave the rest of us alone!
TGC + Acts 29 + ACNA … it’s just too mind-boggling for this old man this morning! The Bible has much to say about evil alliances.
“Russell Moore is there as well.” (Dee)
I repeat. It might be a good thing to put all the New Calvinist “influencers” in the same bucket. Perhaps the New Calvinist movement will become a New Anglican movement, creating a new band of young Aglicanistas to pester a different corner of the American church.
I live in Nashville, and it is interesting to see some of these names popping up to preach at other churches, some that are not of the same ilk.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
When I was a kid, right before the Dark Ages and shortly after Noah exited the ark, take your pick, the only church for a while in our little village in the NM sandhills was a community church. People of all denoms attended and served. Preachers were invited from several denoms, and when a person wanted to join the church they could request a pastor from “their” denom officiate that day, baptisms included.
It worked nicely for many years, until the SBC folks pulled out and opened a church. Then the community church quickly became Methodist so we could get a regular circuit rider.
So much cringe in this 2018 too-long TGC puff piece on Ortlund:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-ray-ortlund-became-foster-father-to-a-generation-of-church-planters
“‘Ray is “the most ‘Jesusy’ guy I’ve ever known,’ said Midwestern Seminary director of content strategy and TGC blogger Jared Wilson…’I never left a meeting with him without feeling like I could walk on water’.”
“Ray and Jani are a rare Acts 29 couple in that they’re older, and they’ve become mother and father figures to not just their congregation, but the whole network”
“‘He’s got this goofy weightiness about him,’ said Acts 29 US Southeast network director Brian Lowe. Ray’s Immanuel Church is in Lowe’s region. ‘Our guys see a gravitas in him, something that is weighty’.”
“Ray’s humility, joy, and depth of faith were important in helping Acts 29 mature, president Matt Chandler told TGC”, “Ray joined Acts 29 in 2009, back when ‘the kids were running the house,’ Chandler said”, “‘He…is serious about speaking life into women, and is an unapologetic man.’ He was the dad Acts 29 was looking for…’I have often joked that if I could pick my own dad, I would pick Ray Ortlund,’ Chandler said. “Even as a 43-year-old man, I want to grow up in Ray Ortlund’s house.'”
[continued]
Ortlund’s telling of Immanuel Nashville’s origin story:
“Ortlund took over as the fourth senior pastor of the 2,500-member Christ Presbyterian Church in 2004…’The way it ended precipitated the crisis of my life’. It’s still hard for him to talk about…’A group of people in the church made it their purpose that I would not be their pastor any longer, and they succeeded in their purpose’…Ray and Christ Presbyterian split ways in February 2007…three or four couple-friends began meeting with Ray and Jani on Sunday nights, ‘to comfort and encourage us,’ Ray said. The fellowship grew into a Bible study…Immanuel Church held its first public service on Easter Sunday 2008. The nondenominational church is gospel-centered and Reformed, with the confession of The Gospel Coalition as its doctrinal statement. In 2009, Immanuel joined Acts 29.”
I got curious about St. Ebbe’s in Oxford. First, good luck getting Oxford students to start going to church. The university is famously anti-religious and has been for a long time. Just ask C. S. Lewis.
Second, the St. Ebbe’s website wants to have it both ways or maybe all ways. I saw no symbol of the Church of England, although the C of E website does list St. Ebbe’s as a parish.
The history page is fascinating. It goes all the way back to the year 1005, and manages to avoid mention of the Roman Catholic Church, the founding of the Church of England, or the English Civil Wars (fought in and around Oxford).
https://stebbes.org/about/history-of-st-ebbes/
(Hopping over to the parish’s Facebook page, it has a link labeled Anglican Church, which calls up a list that includes many far-flung ACNA, UECNA, and various “continuing Anglican” places of worship, as well as a Methodist Holiness spot in Kentucky that recently closed and auctioned its property. Not much evidence of the Church of England on that list. Maybe the SBC has taught them to hide their C of E connections when not advantageous.)
I do agree with one observation on the parish history page on its website:
“In recent years, the parish has changed beyond all recognition.”
Ummm…I’m reminded that Ray Ortlund was lending his considerable imprimatur to C.J. Mahaney as recently as April 11, 2021. I confirmed that by looking that SGC Louisville’s sermon page, where CJ is quoted as saying:
Maybe in that church, but I seem to recall at least one Gospel where Jesus said communion/Eucharist was the most important thing–“do this in memory of me.” Not preaching. However, I am merely an ex-lawyer turned financial technology generalist, so this is outside of my wheelhouse, therefore, Your Mileage May Vary.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/st.ebbes.church.minister.to.be.ordained.in.the.cofe/136959.htm
“Central St Ebbe’s operates under the delegated episcopal oversight of the ‘flying’ Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Rev Rod Thomas, the Provincial Episcopal Visitor (PEV) for CofE conservative evangelical churches opposed to the ordination of women.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Ebbe%27s_Church,_Oxford
Rectors
…..
1986–1998: David Fletcher
1998–present: Vaughan Roberts
Non-stipendiary ministers
2005-2008: Sam Allberry
David Fletcher = Iwerne leader who covered up John Smyth’s abuses, AND brother of Jonathan Fletcher
Vaughan Roberts was minister for students at St. Ebbe’s before succeeding Fletcher. He too was Iwerne trustee, after its rebranding as ‘Titus Trust’.
A “non-stipendary minister” is also called a “self-supporting minister.” Basically, Sam Allberrry was using St. Ebbe’s as a home base for some reason, while not getting any sort of financial benefit out of it. There’s a Wikipedia article if you want to know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-supporting_minister
To me, a non-stipendary minister means that you’re using the name of the organization for your own benefit. Hmmm.
Oh brother!! These young reformers know how to lay it on thick. They know that they have to flatter and swoon over the big boys to climb the New Calvinist ladder (a ladder that is becoming more shaky by the day). The Bible has a lot to say about flattering lips … and it ain’t good. “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).
I doubt that the early church referred to their pastors as “Jesusy” sorta guys. This whole New Calvinist movement is a mess, full of celebrities and their groupies. They ain’t got a clue about authentic Christianity.
Beth Moore’s church is in this Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast (So. Texas and Louisiana). The geography’s understandable with her, but how did Ortlund & Allberry happen to land in that diocese? Odd.
Ortlund was featured speaker at Tom Ascol’s ‘Founders’ Conference in 2006:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080820090808/http://www.foundersconference.org/past/fcon_2006.html
His wife Jani spoke as well, with Donna Ascol; of course their topic was: “Stand by Your Man”.
Which really means “Submit to Your Man … or Else!”
Reminds me of the old warning, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
linda,
I went to military chapels as a girl. Protestant congregations got a chaplain assigned by the Navy from a random denomination. A big base might have more than one Protestant chaplain, so you could have an Episcopalian one Sunday and a Southern Baptist the next.
Eeeeeew, who talks like that?!
People who say things that don’t mean what you think they mean. Like Max said, it translates to “woman, submit!” …. and then some.
Really, it means pat the girls on the head… tell them how pretty they are… complement the fine dishes they bring to the fellowship meals… rave about how psmart they are and what great jobs they do with the children ……… throw the dogs some bones so they’ll sitting, and heeling, and going to fetch….. all on command …….. and keep coming back and begging for more ……. Blechhh!
If the women in these churches really had any life in them, they’d put their boots on and do some walkin’.
Whew! I guess women are spiritually dead before they come into contact with Ortlund. Chandler, in an interview with Piper, said he preaches to men and condescendingly refers to female members of his church as “our girls.” I hope ACNA churches are ready for the “beauty of complementarity” because here come the New Calvinists (or should we call them the New Anglicans).
The unapologetic, I suppose.
I keep waiting for women ensared by New Calvinism to rise up en masse, declare “Enough is enough!” and start dragging their sorry husbands/boyfriends out of that mess … leaving the “beauty of complementarity” in their dust.
The clergy back in medieval times were also well funded (by force) off the backs of the peasantry.
I didn’t have any idea what “speaking life into women” meant.
Amen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbyAZQ45uww
Max,
Good point.
My best church experience to date, hands down, was similar. A ministry a local mega (by our standards) church in SE Asia had to English-speaking ex-pats. The church (and elders, who were locals) was Presbyterian. The pastor of the English ministry, an ex-pat, was some stripe of Baptist. Worship leader was Lutheran.
I seriously miss those days.
It is a fine but important distinction that ACNA is not recognized by the Church of England – though it calls itself ‘Anglican’ it is thoroughly American and evangelical. But it has adopted salient Anglican ceremony and rubrics – but is far more entrepreneurial. The official Anglican ™ church in America is the Episcopal church, which like it’s foundational English archetype is institutional. Interestingly, anglican means ‘English’, which was squashed 500 years earlier by William the Conqueror – the language and privileges of the Angles banished from the court for three hundred years – French was the language of officialdom. Henry VIII’s hostile takeover of Canterbury and Catholic institutions made the language of the Angles that of the reformed church – now the institutional Church of England. Henry, though, died a faithful and practicing Roman Catholic, however privily. Kind of a mess, huh?
Good grief,
the way this is presented, it seems as though a group with similar agendas converged together for more ‘star-power’ (what passes for ‘gravitas’ among the ‘famous’ and ‘high-profile’ of the evangelical world);
but it DOESN’T MAKE THEOLOGICAL SENSE, no.
So what else is on that collection of ‘similar agendas’ in a political sense? Or is this some kind of non-denomination effort to salvage something from what is ‘left behind’ as so many exit fundamentalist-evangelicalism for greener pastures of the Lord?
questions? yes
but I’d guess from what is presented that this new ‘coalition’ is formed more from the ‘needs’ of those who will be ‘in charge’ than for the benefit of those they propose to shepherd;
and so uncharitably, my guess is that this group is about as ‘Anglican’ as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, ‘Anglican’ for me representing the established C of E and it’s American traditional Episcopalian sister.
Uncharitable or confused? Something doesn’t ‘make sense’, no. Strange bedfellows, these ‘new members’ of a new entity, so what is their ‘common core’? Is it constructive? Or some collective ‘response’ of individuals to having been side-lined or excluded from other seats of power and control?
I liked Ava’s idea to ‘follow the money’.
and who was it said ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?
sorry to be so cynical, but Dee is right that this group, being so ‘mysterious’, warrants observation. So, ‘lights, please’. It’s the absence of clarity that reminds me of when I went to find out what ‘the gospel’ meant as a term to Southern Baptists,
and I ran into a host of folks who thought my question was ‘ingenious’ and that ‘I should know better’;
until finally I was told by one blog leader that ‘the gospel’ has nothing to do with the four Holy Gospels of the Bible.
so much for light, dear people – but I did try to ask, and the truth is that some people were kind and shared with me their own understanding that was meaningful to them,
and I was grateful for their kindness to me in those days and I remain in their debt.
d4v1d,
All of these groups hold in common the Book of Common Prayer, with its worship rubrics and all the flows therefrom. Thomas Cranmer produced the first BCP in 1549. Versions of it have been produced worldwide for centuries.
I fully grasp how precious a form of worship can be. It’s a little harder to understand devotion to a specific edition of a book, such as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer issued in the U S of A. But people will look for sand, and will draw lines in it.
Friend,
*all that flows
Strictly speaking I believed Henry VIII preferred the Catholic style ritual, clergy not marrying, etc but did take much of the church wealth (dissolve the monasteries and confiscate their wealth) and control of the church. His son’s regents made the church much more protestant in fashion; his elder daughter, who followed the son, reconciled the church with Rome and created a good number of Protestant martyr; his younger daughter turned it Protestant again though not as far as her brother’s regents had.
I think the Church of England (or to be exact the Archbishop of Canterbury) doesn’t recognize the ACNA as part of the Anglican Communion which is not quite the same as not recognizing it as a legitimate church. There are Anglican communion churches that would like the ACNA to replace the TEC in the Anglican Communion (see Churches of Nigeria or Uganda), but, it is the Archbishop of Canterbury who determines who is in or out (i.e., who gets invited to the Lambeth Conference, he probably considers that the only bright side of the current pandemic is that the next conference keeps getting delayed). I think the ACNA is quite willing to recognize CoE priests etc (as long as they agree with the ACNA over the issue of LGBT people).
“Speaking life” just means “to encourage” or “edify” in general. It’s not gender specific. I think (but am not positive) that it’s a reference to Ezekiel 37, where the dry bones come back to life.
It is kinda a weird idiom, now that you mention it.
I vaguely recall that Henry VIII wanted full sovereignty, and did not wish to share power over his realm with foreigners in faraway Rome. In addition to wanting to control his own numerous marriages.
Today the Anglican Communion is also a network of national and regional churches—geographically defined and NOT overlapping—in part for harmony: bishops cannot poach believers. ACNA and CANA brought American parishes and dioceses under local and foreign bishops’ control. There’s already an Anglican Communion national church in the US, in New Zealand, in Nigeria, in North India, in South India, and so on; why should the Anglican Communion recognize a second and hostile group in any of these places?
Called the Dark Ages for a reason.
I think it’s because in their world, women cannot have any legitimate agency apart from men.
Women have a primal power that those guys in fundagelicalism are both scared of and jealous that they don’t have.
“And God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God, he created male and female.” Gen 1:26–27
Equal agency, men & women.
What primal power?
The overreaching people who want to deny agency of any other adults, are afraid of losing their self proclaimed power over others.
Jesus said to beware of those who lord it over others. Bullies with theology. Beware.
http://christianitytoday.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=8e54d6b523b279543ac12a0f7333cd3c.7816&s=6f6e3ff573f60170e727e6bf5e78e325
Russell Moore: “My Favorite Books of 2021…The rules are always that I’m to limit myself to 10 or 12…These are in no particular order”
“7. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition (InterVarsity)…its size makes it easy to keep nearby, to use as a resource when reading the Bible or praying. My copy stays right here next to me all the time.”
You can see that Moore already had a BCP atop his ESV Bible on his desk in Oct. 2020, while he was still leading the SBC’s ERLC:
https://twitter.com/drmoore/status/1314933140532736000
My understanding is that Anglicanism (including ACNA) is split up between Anglo-Catholics (for whom the Eucharist is the main thing), and those more Reformed (the preaching is the main thing), and then the “low church” evangelical.
I wonder if the Calvinists are out to make this particular church Reformed, or if it is already Reformedish and the Gospel Coalition guys see this church as useful.
A bigger issue – I wonder if the Anglo-Catholics in the ACNA are losing out and the Calvinists are making inroads, until the Calvinists control the denomination.
Wild Honey,
Subcultures do have their own jargon.
perhaps who never say ‘sorry’, perhaps.
In ‘their’ world:
“Man is the image of God directly, woman is the image of God only through the man … Because man was created by God in His image first, man alone was created in a direct and unmediated fashion as the image of God, manifesting then the glory of God in man, that is male man … It may be best to understand the original creation of male and female as one in which the male was made in the image of God in a direct, unmediated and unilateral fashion, while the female was made image of God through the man and hence in a indirect, mediated and derivative fashion.” – Bruce Ware
In ‘their’ kingdom, women are mere derivatives of men. But Praise God, in ‘His’ Kingdom all are created equal with equal access to Him … in Christ, there is no difference between male and female. Christendom needs to step up and rebuke heresies which teach otherwise.
Perhaps irrelevant, but the first image reminded me of the scene of Luther’s gesture of submission at 51:20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12vL_EdXqzc
How much trouble could have been avoided had he simply done as advised and said recanto .
I don’t know enough history to assess how accurate this representation was; IMO it was good story-telling and film-making. IIRC, the unfortunate incident of the Letter to the Princes of Saxony is elided, though the aftermath is briefly portrayed.
re: the question about the absence of Lutheran authoritarian utopias, it may be that ML’s dependence on the German princes for his own safety in the earlier stages contributed to a theory of church relations with the civil magistracy that discouraged those.
It worked in the SBC! Why not venture out with the same model … come in by stealth and deception, mobilize a young army of “Anglicanistas”, takeover traditional churches, harvest ACNA resources … manipulate, intimidate and dominate to accomplish an ungodly agenda disguised as God’s will.
And standing by is a Dr. Fauci bobblehead! It doesn’t get any better than this!!
Moore was obviously signaling to ACNA with BCP that “I’m in!” … while he was signaling to SBC’s Calvinistas with his trusty ESV to “Join me there!”
Great catch, Jerome! I’m glad you are on our side!
Some interesting comments! Lutherans also have their RCC wannabe’s, and the local church here is very much in the vein. But some are more, for lack of a better word, evangelical’s with preaching to the idea of coming to the faith more the main thing, and then there are small groups that are more holiness and pietistic more like the old time Hauge Lutherans. So in a sense Lutheranism has its Anglo Catholic counterpart, its evangelical groups, and its very close to John MacArthurs.
There used to be (hope still is) a chapel in Cuchara Colorado. Very beautiful little place, and we were blessed to worship with them once. They truly are a church composed of people from all denominations, and it was splendid.
Not five minutes ago the Churh Of England was almost completely Power Theology. There used to be a song:
Pow-wa! to all my friends,
Pow-wa! that never ends.
I hear you knockin’
But you can’t come in
Thank you, I think you’ve found the key to his politics.
When I need accurate history of the church, I run straight to Wikipedia. /s
But this take on the 1662 BCP does invoke a desire for unity that men and women named Moore will surely find in ACNA:
“While intended to create unity, the division established under the Commonwealth and the licence given by the Directory for Public Worship were not easily passed by. Unable to accept the new book, 936 ministers were deprived. The actual language of the 1662 revision was little changed from that of Cranmer. With two exceptions, some words and phrases which had become archaic were modernised; secondly, the readings for the epistle and gospel at Holy Communion, which had been set out in full since 1549, were now set to the text of the 1611 Authorized King James Version of the Bible. The Psalter, which had not been printed in the 1549, 1552 or 1559 books—was in 1662 provided in Miles Coverdale’s translation from the Great Bible of 1538.”
Anglo-Catholic = Calvinist low and high = evangelical = Roman Roman = detached Romanlike = reformed = independent = New Frontiers = the whole lot, now
(Instead of wholesomely proud of their constructive uniquenesses)
Lowest common denominator = scale and no subsidiarity or relationships (except for the elite oops I mean megadudes)
Lowest common denominator = no Holy Spirit or Providence for little ones
Beware the focus groups because you will be told “agreement will come later” which sounds like a wrongful threat. When what is imposed is imposed, you will be told you are bound because you “asked for” it.
Most of us were told most of the time this IS what church should be like.
We were “told” we’d rather be a fragment of an atom splatted on the wall of the universe rather than free and crucial in God’s eyes for real relating with His other free crucial ones.
The most subversive thing you can do, the way to turn tables, is pray (NOT t/m)
Christians seem to have been through some strange sort of training. I get constantly “how are you” not that they want to pray for my practical needs because they aren’t suitable for the “(TM)” version, and they don’t see me as useful for them either to pray for their non-existent needs or to pick my imaginative and knowledgeable – and experienced – brains. Thus the non-conversations remain at an unrealistic level because they resist my reasonable prompts and steers, yet I’m the one that gets framed as out of line. I suspect they are not offering the whole of the gospel to newcomers or prospective enquirers. Christians talk to their machines and press each others’ buttons. They don’t press my buttons and I don’t press theirs and this seems to displease them. The other thing is that they don’t respect boundaries or subsidiarity.
This is really SICK stuff.
@Christiane…for some reason I can’t “reply and quote,” but I’m responding to your “SICK Stuff” response to Max’s quote from Bruce Ware. (LOL, confused yet?)
My first thought? They need Mary.
For amusement, look up The Vicar of Bray (the song).
Well for one, women are the stronger of our species.
When the Red Army (Russia) pushed the Wehrmacht far enough West so that the death camps got liberated, women were by far the majority of survivors.
This but one instance that lends support to my statement at the beginning of my comment.
That’s why I’ve been so vehemently opposed to the New Calvinist movement. It’s replete with aberrant belief and practice, taught by men who wouldn’t make it in authentic Church.
Post 1 of 2: CricketIn a sensational development in the Fourth Test in Sydney, a fine battling 66 from Ben Stokes and and even finer century from Johnny Bairstow saw England close Day 3 on 258-7, 158 runs behind Australia; this means that the hosts will have to bat again and, although a home victory remains certain, Australia can only win by 10 wickets rather than by an innings.
Post 2 of 2: A note about our local Episcopal congregationTo add a rather happier reflection to the recent discussions that have involved, inter alia, Anglicanity; last night we attended the sung communion service for Epiphany at the aforesaid Episcopal church. I grew up in the C of E down in Englandshire, and so I knew all the hymns, but I’ve not actually sung them for some 30 years. While every congregation is different, it has been a great joy to get back in touch with this aspect of Church life. The rector, who’s quite young and (like us) an immigrant to Scotland, can deliver more warmth, encouragement and thought-provoking reflection in a 5-minute sermon than most people can in 40.
Yeah. Welcome to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), the Southern Baptist Convention SBC), and the eternal subordination of the Son (ESS).
I was a member of one SBC church, or another, for nearly 40 years. Not anymore.
Several years ago, Christian Monist posted a short vignette (flashfic) about a Virtual Church of the Future in what’s now called “Metaverse” a descendant of Second Life where everybody attends virtually through digital CGI avatars.
It ended with everybody logged off and all the avies interacting on autopilot mode.
Fellowshipping(TM) in perfect Christianese from their automatic-response algorithms, indistinguishable from when they were “incarnating” their operators from Meatspace.
i.e. Welcome to the Republic of Holy Gilead, Pre-Release Beta prototype.
And because it is all perfect from the lips of God Himself, there is no need for debugging.
Old-school gamer convention when rolling up characters for D&D or Traveller was if the Strength was greater than the Constitution/Endurance, the character was male. If Con/End was greater than Str, femals.
Don’t ask about when the two characteristics were equal; most players would one or the other, but some would get kinky with the gender assignment.
Summarized in six words:
“BOYZ RULE! GURLS DROOL! GAWD SAITH!”
Nick Bulbeck,
That sounds wonderful.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you could confirm they DIDN’T flag themselves up as a Move Of Man with all the public personalities playing chic to “endorse” it.
Shackleton aircaft were described by someone I knew who had flown in them, and his then colleagues, as “30,000 rivets flying in formation” (that magic number again 😉 )
That’s the model I like: Holy Spirit intuition plentifully including us little ones.
Michael in the UK–it simply was a chapel for people who lived, or had summer homes, in the little mountain town. There was a hyped up movement of man a few miles away. This was just people of various denoms who did not want to drive long mountain roads to get to a “regular” service and were focused on Christ, not hype and hipster movements. I don’t know if you can still get it one the web, but you used to be able to see a picture of the chapel and of the poem that described them. Lovely.
in response to Nancy (Kevlar), Max, and C.G.Crasher:
In retrospect, what I read from Bruce Ware seems to be an outgrowth connected deeply to a RESULT of the ‘Fall’ in Eden, when the human dignity of a single PERSON as made in the imago Dei became ‘questioned’ in a way that made life on Earth something of a misogynist hell for many women and also in a way that made SOME men into monsters in how they viewed (and sometimes treated) ‘women’ as a collective group.
I’m not a fundamentalist. Hardly that. But something happens when we cannot see the humanity in one another because of our ‘differences’ and it became long before there was a CBMW or a Bruce Ware or even when ‘patriarchy’ raised its evil head and took aim at the souls and spirits of women, yes.
Whatever the origin or cause, it is not too difficult to see that it was of evil intent and the fall-out has been exactly that: ‘Fall’ out coming from some primordial time when our human kind was ‘wounded’. The men of patriarchy were just as wounded in how they ‘became’ people of ill-will towards women in seeing women as a ‘sub’ species. We know Our Lord did NOT teach or reinforce that evil. Far from it.
Of course, many women ‘go along’ to ‘get along’ in ways that are sometimes hard to witness. You have only to volunteer with shelters for battered women and their children to see how bad it CAN get.
BUT THE REALLY SHOCKING THING is that misogyny is planted and preached by individuals to use ‘the Bible’ to further the attitude that women are ‘sub’ human: ‘less than’ men; and that somehow God the Creator did this to women.
Yes, ‘sick’ was what I saw in Bruce Ware’s comment. But it is an age-old sickness. Wrong for men who are ‘pastors’ who preach Christ and Him Crucified to dishonor any human person made in the image of God by declaring them ‘sub’ in importance. That the ESS folks had to lower Our Lord’s place in the Holy Trinity in support of their misogynistic preaching was a ‘sign’ of the confusion and ill-intent that the evil one has brought to humankind as a RESULT of the effects of the ‘Fall’.
CGCrasher: YES, I also see Mary as someone needed to help heal the mind-frame of those who bear the scars of the fall in how they view women and sometimes treat them as ‘sub’humans.
Good call. 🙂
I had to look it up. What a huge aircraft, a descendant of the Lancaster bomber. I can imagine rivets everywhere, adding to the drag. Probably a sturdy old bird.
There is some comment here that equates Anglo-Catholic with the degree of ritual involved – and yes there is that, but it’s coincidental with the key element in its very taxonomy: ‘Catholic’ with a capital C. It is not a style of worship or a depth of formality, it’s a particular belief commitment. The ‘true’ Anglo-Catholic church gives Mary prominence that exceeds anything Protestantism allows, and stops only just short of the goddess status the RCC affords her. Under Pope Benedict, many English and a few American Anglo-Catholic parishes were admitted into the ‘Ordinariate,’ suddenly a class of RCC church with married priests – this is a program that Pope Francis cancelled. A prominent A-C parish in my area (which I frequently attend) lost a contingent to the Ordinariate.
My wife and I have sort of a “complementarian” relationship. Her spiritual gifts complement mine. We believe that there is no distinction between male and female in Christ … there are no ‘sub’ anybodies in the Kingdom of God, not by race, class or gender.. I have benefited spiritually by the things she has taught me about faith; she would say the same thing about me. We’ve got along just fine in this regard for over 50 years.
Didn’t Paul say something like this?? Funny, this Neo Cal people seem to focus on Paul, but even miss this obvious set of verses… sigh
Yep, they won’t listen to anything Paul said which cannot be twisted to fit their belief and practice. You will never hear a Calvinista preach this:
“All of you who were baptized “into” Christ have put on the family likeness of Christ. Gone is the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female — you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
The underlying problem with NeoCal preaching is that they seldom, if ever, build sermon text from the Gospels. They camp out in Paul’s epistles, taking text out of context, twisting his words, applying bad eisegesis. I tell them when I get the opportunity: If you read Paul first, you might read Jesus wrong. But if you read Jesus first, the writings of Paul come into perspective.
Can we please stop with the “goddess status”? No Catholic believes Mary is a goddess. Please, please, please. Disagree with us all you like. Even bash us if you’re so inclined. But at least object to what we actually believe — not to the Protestant caricature thereof. Thank you!
It’s not just the reformed tribe that camps out almost exclusively on Paul’s writings.
I’ve seen it in non-reformed churches too.
Well, it’s obvious in my area that a lot of churchgoers are not reading nor living the words in red. I see them through the week living like hell.
For example, the Baptist deacon who prayed over the offering on Sunday and cussed my daughter out the next week at the engineering firm she worked at.
Seems consistent to me.
/eyeroll
“Christian hateth Mary whom God kissed in Galilee…”
— G.K.Chesterton, “Lepanto”
consistent with a ‘salty spring’, alas.
Samuel Conner,
Yes, that’s what I meant.
Back in 2020, This pair was in cedarville as part of Immanuel, and I thought they were both staff members. Ortlund spoke in chapel there, and the Immanuel band played the music. I can’t recall if Allberry had any role in the service or if he was just travelling with the band.
https://www.cedarville.edu/Chapel/Watch/Friendship/ZYWXSIC4rE6Tw2DuU8thKQ?y=3