"While the puritan and evangelical heritage of Sydney Anglicans gives them ample grounds to stake out within the Anglican tradition and to resist being marginalised, the reality to be admitted is that both of these groups have had at times testy relationships with the structural and institutional side of Anglicanism. Puritans were frustrated with the lack of further progress in doctrinal and liturgical reform and so many of them left the Church of England or were forced out. Evangelical Anglicans have always freely co-operated with evangelicals in other denominations, and have prioritised gospel work at the expense of institutional conformity. As Turnbull writes, ‘[H]istorically, Anglican Evangelicals have proved flexible over church order in the interests of the gospel’. But if Anglicanism has been flexible enough to accommodate evangelicals, it has also been flexible with progressive liberalism. Evangelicals have felt stymied in their mission by an institution which in turn seems only too ready to endorse the liberal agenda in faith and conduct. For evangelical Anglicans in every generation the question arises ‘what is the tipping point as far as remaining an Anglican goes?"
For more, see:
The Blogging Parson: Still Anglican
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