Episcopal Church: Christian?

[John81]

ANGLICANS PREPARE FOR DEFECTIONS



Worshippers Prepare For Church Defection [Excerpts]

Hundreds of disillusioned Anglicans could defect to the Roman Catholic Church in time for Lent.

The split among Church of England worshippers follows a campaign by former bishop Father Keith Newton.

He has appealed for people to leave the church over its stance on the ordination of women and gay clergy.

Instead, defectors are being encouraged to join the Ordinariate, a special branch of Catholicism established by the Pope to welcome former Protestants.

The efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury have not been enough to stop Anglicans making the split he had hoped to avoid.

The feared defections began in earnest last month - with three Church of England bishops converting to the Roman Catholic Church.

(Enright, Sky News, UK, Sunday February 06, 2011)

[TBC: Though these Anglicans can see the clear teaching of The Bible on some moral issues, it is distressing that they cannot or will not recognize the false gospel of Rome that is adamantly opposed to the biblical gospel.]

[Covenanter]

The CofE has been a compromise since the Elizabethan settlement of 1559. There have always been dissenters & non-conformists, & accommodation of closet RCs.

Thankfully there have also been godly men who have held a clear Biblical faith & Gospel. It's getting ever more difficult (if not impossible) to stay in.

I came out in 1957.

[Invicta]

Kindof blue

Your post is not quite accurate. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Known locally as That old druid.) did not reject homosexual priests on biblical grounds, but on the ground that it would split the church.We now have homosexual priests in England as well as bishops.

I know a number of Baptists who live in an area where there is no sound Baptist church who attend their local Evangelical Anglian church, I really cannot understand this. However, they say that is the only church in the area that preaches the gospel.

The biblical "bishop" was an Overseer or Elder, having oversight of the local church, not over an area or denomination.

(I may be accused of correcting the KJB here but..) King James, I believe did not allow the transaltors to translate anything that went against then current tradition so we have "baptism" instead of immersion, and "bishop" instead of elder/overseer. Brethren call their elders, "The Oversight."

The denomination, "The Peculiar People" had bishops, but they were just elders in the particular church.

Of course IFB is a denomination. The Brethren said they were not a denomination,(but of course ther are) just believers meeting together.

[mattd]

Kindof blue

Your post is not quite accurate. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Known locally as That old druid.) did not reject homosexual priests on biblical grounds, but on the ground that it would split the church.We now have homosexual priests in England as well as bishops.

I know a number of Baptists who live in an area where there is no sound Baptist church who attend their local Evangelical Anglian church, I really cannot understand this. However, they say that is the only church in the area that preaches the gospel.

The biblical "bishop" was an Overseer or Elder, having oversight of the local church, not over an area or denomination.

(I may be accused of correcting the KJB here but..) King James, I believe did not allow the transaltors to translate anything that went against then current tradition so we have "baptism" instead of immersion, and "bishop" instead of elder/overseer. Brethren call their elders, "The Oversight."

The denomination, "The Peculiar People" had bishops, but they were just elders in the particular church.

Of course IFB is a denomination. The Brethren said they were not a denomination,(but of course ther are) just believers meeting together.

You know, I've always been told this and believed it, but I haven't seen any scripture that supports this. From scripture, it seems, at least early on, that a bishop was overseeing serveral different congregations. We have a single man, Paul, giving insturctions to various churches usually though letters addressed to single individuals (Timothy, Titus . . .). I would also have to assume that with such a young faith without the benefit of a body of scripture (have to keep in mind that the people of the NT did not have a BIble) that there wouldn't be just hordes of informed and otherwise qualified persons that could oversee each of the several assemblies that were scattered and having to meet in secret. Now, I don't think that is what we need today as each congregation is firmly capable of chosing its own pastor (or bishop or overseer or whatever you want to call it) with the guidance of scripture. But early own, I could definitely see, say, one Bishop overseeing the four or five little assemblies in his village. When thinking about things such as this, I often struggle with trying to fit the circumstances of the NT times in the context of today. I have to keep reminding myself that things were very different back then. There was a very small literacy rate; the church was being persecuted (and not like we think of persecution, but literally being hunted out and killed); Jesus' only had a small group of intimate followers; no printing press so no mass production of the NT manuscripts; and the simple fact that, although we have intimations of how a church is to be structured and how a worship service may be conducted, we definitely don't have a specific step by step guide. The practices of each of the several churches today developed over a period a time. Anyone else have trouble wrapping their minds around all of this?