In the past couple of decades it has seemed like we are constantly bombarded by articles suggesting that the Anglican Communion is about to break apart or that North American Anglicans are calling each other schismatic or heritical (thinking of TEC and ACNA in particular), and frankly it can all seem like a tragedy unfolding at times.

This doesn't of course bear witness to the extraordinary ability of those within the Anglican tradition to stay together, often when issues such as churchmanship, theology and sexuality are thrown into the mix. That has to be celebrated.

I really hope that you will pray with me for continued patience and reconciliation within our tradition - surely unity must be a God given goal? This doesn't mean ignoring the concerns of those who have separated or any who have experienced hurt. My own province, the Church of England, has had many of these issues for centuries and had its own share of separations, but I've also been humbled throughout my time as an Anglican (about nine years) and even more so now as an Ordinand, by witnessing things like the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic priest sharing prayer and humour with his charismatic Evangelical colleague, people with different views on women's ordination even being married to one another, along with acts of charity and generosity that will never be newsworthy.

Seeing an ACNA Bishop sharing such warmth with his TEC counterpart just warmed my heart so much. The healing has to start somewhere.

Hello,

Essentially, post title. I would like to continue being Episcopalian. Anglican worship and tradition speak to me perfectly and essentially allow me to hold my Protestant opinions and still maintain Roman Catholic or Orthodox practices. I actually left the Episcopal Church for 3 years and became Roman Catholic, only to return due to certain issues within the Roman Catholic Church (absolute certainty, compulsory confession, mortal sin, etc. this led me to have intense anxiety and got me an OCD diagnosis). But the Episcopal Church is my home, and it's where I became a Christian, and this where my wife and daughter were baptized.

But here is the thing. How do I just... Ignore certain politicized aspects of the Church? I am staunchly pro life and believe homosexuality (as in acting upon it) is sinful. I'm not a hardcore conservative either, I think Republicans do very little to actually help working class families. I think Christians should be above party politics, in all honesty. I am also concerned with the Church having little guardrails for certain things (like some folks not affirming the Creed). Things like this bother me. Surprisingly enough, I do not care if women are priests.

Can I just be Episcopalian/Anglican and just ignore that stuff? It's not terribly present at my local parish beyond a kinda liberal Bible study that I quietly left. I don't just want to become ACNA either because historical continuity is important.

I would appreciate some advice my friends. God bless you!

The joint blessing of a chapel at a historic school by an Episcopal bishop and an Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) bishop has stirred up deep controversy in the ACNA, with an August 26 statement from its acting primate sharply criticizing the service and promising that the church’s College of Bishops would rule on the situation next month.

Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and Bishop Chip Edgar of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina participated alongside each other at the August 18 blessing of St. Timothy’s Chapel, a 600-seat church on the campus of Charleston’s Porter-Gaud School.

Photos of the event circulating on social media show the two bishops leading prayers together, draping a hanging over the chapel’s altar, laughing, and embracing warmly.

Both bishops are members of the independent Episcopal school’s Board of Trustees, and worked together early in their episcopates to resolve remaining tensions from the 2012 division of the original Diocese of South Carolina

The entire story is worth the read. It appears that the conflict is strictly internecine from the ACNA camp.

Anglican rosary guide! Completely free to use!

So I base this rosary guide and its prayers with the “traditional” prayers that are usually kept in the Anglican rosary. The only things that I added to was that I added the daily Hours to be said at the Invidatory bead and the Angelus to the last Crusiform bead. I really, really like Oxford Movement prayers, as they had a very theologically mainline Anglican-applicable form of Marian devotion.

I would also like to say that I have made various guides for prayer beads for various denominations. I make these guides to help people’s journey with God. I actually either just contemplate what would seem good to a person with a form of the rosary or the devotional of it, or I end up creating a guide in which that I practice almost daily. The ladder option is indeed that of this guide. I use this guide to almost every single day to guide me through the Hours (especially before and after a long day of college work). I really thought of this guide to be a very nice relaxing time with your Book of Common Prayer and rosary—with a nice noon teatime. Or morning devotion when you’re going to have a very full day of work and you just need that little extra boost.

Anyhow, I would like to say that I received a lot of hate comments on my last guy that I did give because I basically converted the Anglican rosary into Roman Catholic prayers, which I do not practice that guide, but making that guide was suggested to me. I received lots and lots of backlash and both support, which I am very unsure of both. But anyhow, this rosary guide is that of something I do daily. It is something that I trust, it is something that I believe in, and it is something that I really like. It is simply the daily devotional Hours, repetitive ancient prayers, and a nice bit of concentrated Marian devotion. Perfect thing to come home to.

Anyhow, I hope that this doesn’t receive hate, but if it does… eh I’m just gonna keep making these! I don’t care, it’s Reddit😂✝️🙏

Im an organist at an anglican church in maryland and I have been looking at the litany in d minor as a potential liturgical thing sometime this upcoming lent.
Has anyone else done this version of the litany at their church?
If so how hard is it

Im asking my priest about doing a public reading of The Apocalypse/The Revelation of God to Jesus Christ given to John as we draw near to the Feast of The Reign of Christ or perhaps during Advent and as I was thinking about what it could look like I wondered if it would be ever appropriate to process the Book of The Apocalypse similar to how the Gospels are and if there is any precedence?

I feel a call to chaplaincy - unsure which kind - but not clear if I feel a call to full ordination.
I have met lots of chaplains and really connect to their work.
How possible is it to achieve this by becoming a lay minister? It would be also great to hear more about the what discernment process for becoming a lay minister
I worry because I feel a call but also a bit of a fraud even though I have attended church all my life and been a practicing Christian. However until four years ago I was a member of another denomination.
I only started attending an Anglican church initially to get my child into a school but since then I have felt very at home and very drawn to the denomination.
I volunteer for a lot of things but do worry that I’m perceived by the Church leadership as one of the parents who only want their kid in the school. I worry I would not be taken seriously if I spoke to a priest about lay ministry or they would think I am not religious enough!
Anyway, would be great to hear from anyone who is travelling on this path!

The converter of the Northumbrians to the Faith and the contemporary of figures like St. Wilfrid and the villain Penda. It's related by Bede that when Penda attempted to burn down Bamburgh, St. Aidan was watching the scene all the way from Lindisfarne and, after saying a prayer, the wind blew the fire right back at Penda's army.

Some readings for the day: https://www.liturgies.net/saints/aidan/readings.htm

Hi everyone,

I joined the LCMS back in 2019 (I was 21 years old at the time) after coming out of a hyper-fundamentalist Holiness Pentecostal background. At first, I really appreciated the liturgical and sacramental focus of Lutheranism, but I’ve been unhappy with the LCMS for a while now. I know I don’t fit in with Rome as I have significant theological disagreements with them, and I’m also not comfortable with a lot of what the ELCA allows socially and theologically. So I’ve found myself in an awkward middle ground.

My biggest struggles with the LCMS are both theological and cultural. The rejection of evolution and insistence on young-earth literalism have become a major barrier for me. I work in Public Health (Health Policy) for the State of Minnesota, and my brother is studying to become a physicist, so I have come to hate sitting through Bible studies where scientific questions are looked down upon (or sometimes even treated as salvation issues) rather than areas where faithful Christians can reasonably disagree.

I’ve also become uncomfortable with how much partisan politics seems to bleed into church life. My local congregation has a lot of anti-vax sentiment, along with people who will go on lengthy rants against things like providing free lunches to kids in public schools. That has created a friction between my values and the church culture around me.

I consider myself very much a “womb to tomb” pro-lifer. I believe strongly in protecting unborn life, but I also believe that conviction should extend to caring about poverty, access to healthcare, children and families, and the economic and social conditions that often contribute to women seeking abortions in the first place. I don’t see those things as being in tension with one another.

From my previous experiences with the ACNA on the East Coast, one thing that really stood out to me was the intellectual diversity I encountered. I met people in academia, medicine, science, and other fields who took historic Christian orthodoxy seriously while also engaging thoughtfully with the modern world. That’s something I’ve really missed. I currently live in the Fargo area where a new ACNA church plant is just getting started. I’m very interested in getting involved, but I wanted to ask this community a couple of questions first…

Does the ACNA generally have room for a “whole-life” ethic, holding orthodox Christian views on things like abortion and church leadership while also caring deeply about public welfare, healthcare, poverty, and the broader civic good?

And for those of you in medicine, public health, the sciences, academia, or similar fields, have you generally felt intellectually respected within ACNA parishes, especially when it comes to things like evolution and the relationship between science and Scripture?

I know individual parishes can vary quite a bit, but I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thanks!

I was in church this morning and we heard the Matthew gospel reading where Jesus says to St Peter get behind me satan and calls him a form of blockage and that he was focused on human things and not of heaven - massively butchering the paraphrasing but you know the verses.

Ive wrestled and continue to agonise over catholicism vs anglicanism - should I shouldn't I be which one, which is gods true desire for his church etc etc its a real issue for me and I swing around all over the place in my view. But anyway this reading stood out for me.

Reasons being, that papal supremacy is often based on a couple of verses about giving Peter the keys to the kingdom and leading his church etc. These are taken as the strong grounds for papal supremacy from what I can tell. So we are using one or to of Jesus sentences and taking them as having a majorly significant meaning - thats the logic behind this. But we could also apply the same logic to Jesus calling Peter satan and saying he's not focused on spiritual/heavenly things.

I know context is all important but its more a philosophical point of logic and semantics im trying to make here - if Jesus wanted Peter to be pope and meant so so much by his keys to the kingdom and building his church upon him statement - why would we see this as having such grand meaning in a literal way but another statement referring to Peter as satan - or at least being influenced by him as not having such grand literal weight also. if we took just these sentences you'd never believe Jesus would ever want such a person to be someone leading his whole church. It feels a bit selective and could this be an argument from scripture that diminishes papal supremancy?

Im a hypocrite as im just as likely to argue another point on why perhaps it is clear the pope is Jesus chosen head etc so please understand I know my points here are probably ill thought out and I dont want to upset anyone but I was reflecting in church and thought it may be an interesting discussion. Why focus on one statement as absolute in meaning and another statement as being entirely metaphorical and contextual/symblic only.

DISCLAIMER - JUST TO BE 100% CLEAR, MY ACTUAL THOUGHTS ON THIS ARE THAT JESUS WAS INFERRING PETER WAS BEING INFLUENCED BY EVIL AND FLAGGING IT TO HIM IN THIS STRONGLY WORDED WAY - I DONT BELIEVE HE WAS CALLING HIM SATAN - BUT THIS POINT EXTENDS TO KEYS TO KINGDOM AND BUILDING CHURCH ON HIM - ALSO MAYBE MEANING HE SHOULD LEAD IT TO A DEGREE, BUT PERHAPS NOT TO WHAT THE PAPACY HAS BECOME UNDERSTOOD TO BE TODAY WITH ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY.

Within the Church of England/Anglicanism a baptised layperson can conduct a baptism in an emergency.

Is there a similar function for a layperson to perform some kind of last rites for a dying person (similar to Roman Catholicism) in an emergency?

So I wanted this to be made known because it has remained elusive in written documents. There is a certain quote by Rt. Rev’d Geoffrey Fisher which states,

“The Anglican Communion with its fellowship of churches, has a special responsibility at this time in the world. We have no doctrine of our own—we only possess the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic Church enshrined in the Catholic creeds, and these creeds we hold without addition or diminution. We stand firm on that rock.”

I have personally researched where this quote even came from and multiple sources were just saying that it was a simplification/summary of a longer address he made to The Episcopal Church.

This is not the case… I have finally found exactly where this blasted quote came from. 31 Dec. 1950 — 1 Jan. 1951, from his tour back from Australia and New Zealand, a RECORDED interview. Where was it..? YouTube… timestamp: 6:00-10:10. Right there.

So yeah, long story short, it came from a recorded interview with the archbishop! All of those quotes and absolutely no citation, this is where you get… Here you folks go, if you want it.

EDIT*
So I now actually understand that there was actually major debate on Fisher’s actual quote and what he actually said. I now understand after posting this might be a bit more significant. Here’s the transcribed quote:

“Among these, the Anglican communion has a special responsibility. We have no doctrine of our own—we possess only the catholic doctrine of the catholic Church enshrined in the catholic Creeds. And these creeds we hold without addition or diminution. We stand firm on that rock.”

Hey everyone,

I’m trying to get my head around how the Church of England manages Clergy Personal Files (Blue Files) these days, and I have a few specific questions. Hopefully, some clergy, registry staff, or anyone familiar with diocesan admin can weigh in!

1. How are they actually kept? I know there is House of Bishops guidance, but on a practical level, how are these files looked after day-to-day? Are most dioceses fully digital now, or is it still a mix of paper and PDFs? Does management vary a lot from one diocese to the next?
2. What actually goes in them? Beyond the obvious stuff like licenses, ordination certificates, and MDR paperwork, what is allowed to stay in there? Do informal emails, random letters, or unsubstantiated complaints end up tucked away in a Blue File, or is there a strict filtering process?
3. If you ask to see yours, who finds out? This is the main thing I'm curious about. If a cleric puts in a formal Subject Access Request (SAR) to see their own file, who gets notified behind the scenes? Does it just go to a data officer, or do the Bishop, Archdeacon, or Safeguarding Team immediately get a heads-up that you’ve asked? Also, who is usually the one who actually sits down to review and redact third-party details before handing it over?

Would love to hear from anyone who has gone through this process or works in a diocesan office. Thanks in advance!