Stand Firm | Why North American Anglicans are the Way We Are
In my experience many North American Episcopalians/Anglicans, even from very good orthodox churches, have only a rudimentary concept of what lies between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 - and, worse, little desire to learn. Here are seven reasons (among many) why we are the way we are:
1. Many life-long Anglicans/Episcopalians have grown up with short devotional/poetic homilies only tangentially related to a biblical text rather than biblical exposition. This has bred a passionless, incurious, passive approach to giving and listening to sermons, engaging in bible study, and reading the bible.
2. Driven by the charismatic renewal movement in the late sixties and the growing severity of doctrinal disputes in the Episcopal Church, many Episcopal leaders began to focus on creating a “spiritual experience” to the exclusion of teaching biblical doctrine and ensuring that people understand what Christians believe and why. This created feeling-focused congregations hungry for mountain-top experiences, too impatient for the long slow work of reading, marking and inwardly digesting the word of God.
3. Many Anglican/Episcopal priests distrust the sufficiency of the word of God for the growth (Mk 4:1-20), health (2 Tim 3:16) and sanctification of the church (Jn 17:17), depending rather exclusively on the liturgy and the sacraments to do the work Jesus assigns to the word. This distrust carries the added benefit of making Sunday morning very easy on the priest. Just go through the liturgy and you’re done. This has created many congregations that consider themselves “eucharistically centered” but in reality have no interest in or desire for God’s self revelation in scripture. The readings and sermon are a prelude to the really important part of worship.
4. Many Anglican/Episcopal leaders and people are “recovering” from very rigid fundamentalist pasts where their heads where packed with lots of scripture but their hearts were left cold. The Anglican/Episcopal church is perceived as a place where these “mature” Christians might go to convalesce. These leaders and people often nurse along a reactionary distaste for exposition, doctrine, and adult Christian education - associating all these things negatively with “fundamentalism”. This has created congregations in which new disciples starve for the lack of milk while those who might nourish and feed them pride themselves on their sophistication and spiritual depth. It is also true that many who believe they learned everything there is to know about scripture while sitting between their parents in a “fundamentalist” church are as ignorant as the converts.
5. In many Episcopal Churches, Sunday school is largely seen as something for children to do while the adults are quaffing coffee and downing powdered donuts in the parish hall. Having gone through Sunday school themselves they imagine that they know all there is to know. This has created a culture in which many Baptized, Confirmed, church-going Anglicans are innoculated against the intellectual demands of continuing in the Apostles’ teaching.
For the rest:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/28746
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