Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Friday, December 2, 2011

American Anglican Evangelicals?

Comments in blue below by DPV.

http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/109399_14327_ENG_HTM.htm

Evangelical

The evangelical movement in the Episcopal Church (DPV:  But evangelical and Episcopal, or Anglican, is redundant...hint, hint, the BCP is evangelical)  was influenced strongly (DPV:  Far over-stated and strongly overstated) by the Great Awakening in America during the mid-eighteenth century (DPV: Eegads, overstated). Episcopal evangelicals reflected American evangelicalism in many ways (DPV:  In fact, Lutherans and Anglicans were pretty resistant to enthusiasts), including a characteristic emphasis on personal religion and religious emotion (Huh?  Evangelicals were Prayer-book reading people)
, personal conversion, the authority of the Bible (DPV:  Like the BCP) as centered in the revelation of God in Christ (DPV: Sorta like the Creeds?) , the importance of justification by faith (DPV: Like Articles 9-11, sorta like the Reformation? ), the preaching of the Word and the study of the gospel (DPV: Like Article 6, sorta like the preaching commened by the first 6 centuries of Churchmen, e.g sorta like sola scriptura), the centrality of the cross (DPV:  Eegads, the Gospels?) for salvation (DPV:  Like the 39 Articles and BCP), the importance of the believer's direct relationship with God (DPV: Is there any other kind?), and a desire for pure and undefiled religion (DPV: And the BCP suggests otherwise?  What does the singing of the Psalms in the Anglican suggest? ) which included a strong aversion to worldliness and threats to public morals (DPV:  And what else might the 10 commandments suggest from Holy Communion in the 1789, 1892 or 1928 Prayer Books?). Episcopal evangelicals (DPV: An oxymoron) attended prayer meetings which included informal prayers (DPV: Horrors!  Holy moly!) and enthusiastic singing of hymns (DPV: Proof?  When have we--Anglicans--ever abandoned our beloved BCP?  Our beloved hymns?  Our heritage of honour, dignity, decorum or depth?  Stop!  This is rank revisionism). Evangelicals wrote many of the hymns (DPV:  Huh?  Evidence please?) that were used in the first years of the Episcopal Church. Evangelicals in the Episcopal Church used the Prayer Book and participated in the sacraments (??  DPV:  We need evidence here)  not emphasize the importance of sacramental form or the importance of apostolic succession (DPV: Quite overstated and simplified). They saw much value in the less liturgical (DPV: rank revisionism, Evangelical Anglicans were Prayer Book folks) style of other Protestant churches (DPV:  Hogwash. Anglicans never tossed their beloved BCP) and were impatient with canonical restrictions (DPV:  More overstatements, evangelicals loved their BCPs)  that prevented their participation in the services of other Protestant denominations (DPV: This deserves a howl) or the participation of other Protestant ministers in Episcopal services (DPV: Well, yes, admittedly, rightly, they saw "true churches" outside of Anglicanism, as Anglicanism historically saw, e.g. Confessional and Reformational Lutheran, Reformed and Presbyterian.) They were opposed to ritual excess (DPV:  Like Tractarians and other Ritualists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), which they associated with the Roman Catholic Church (DPV: Puleeeze.  Get some sophistication here, please; some of us do read ya know?). Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine of Ohio challenged the theology of the Oxford Movement in his Oxford Divinity (1841) (DPV: That received very wide support in England that most Americans do not realize;  but don't tell the ACNA or AMiA about these insights from Bp. McIvaine), which identified Oxford divinity with the Roman Catholic Church and urged that both served to undermine the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith (DPV:  Yawn, puleeze.  Historic scholarship has identified Newman with Romanistic Trent.  Ahem.). The the Episcopal Church. Evangelicals have been at the center of the overseas missionary work of the Episcopal Church since the 1830s (DPV :  Evangelical and Anglican are not antonyms despite revisionist reviews). Noted evangelicals in the Episcopal Church included Bishops Richard Channing Moore and William Meade of Virginia; Philander Chase, Gregory T. Bedell, McIlvaine of Ohio (DPV: Supporters of the early REC although they later bagged Bp. Cummins, KY); Alexander Viets Griswold of the Eastern Diocese, who later served as Presiding Bishop; and Alonzo Potter of Pennsylvania. Other notable evangelicals were Elizabeth Channing Moore, and the Rev. William H. Wilmer, who served as president of William and Mary College (DPV: An Evangelical at William and Mary College?  That's news.)  ; and Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." (DPV:  Key, an Evangelical?) Evangelical principles guided the founding of the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, by Meade, Wilmer, and others; and the founding by Chase of Kenyon College and Gambier Theological Seminary (later Bexley Hall) in Ohio. (DPV:  Regrettably, VTS was 4-point Calvinist in 1819, a substantive step-down from classical Dortrechtian Calvinism of 1618-1619, unlike the Elizabethan Bishops who were 5-pointers until the disastrous Arminian Laud, but...this much...FAR, FAR BETTER THAN ANYTHING ON OFFER WITH TEC OR CofE in our times...these modern loons wouldn't know a TULIP if it hit them on the head.  We continue to live in the Anglican exile.  How long, O LORD, must we endure the revisionists and self-serving revisionists?)

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