Despite ever worsening budget problems, The Episcopal Church maintains an aging spy satellite over The Northern Plains. This captured surveillance picture shows several active Anglican bloggers. If you squint you can see Montana Anglican waving in the top left corner; Anglicat of Minnesota is walking her dogs just under the clouds at center-right; yours truly is fording the Big Sioux River under the smokescreen just below dead center. Wyoming's Eclipse was building a hardened position over to the left, but as you can see TEC's robotic intern from EDS got its robotic thumb in the picture. Fr. Chip Johnson managed to evade detection in the Black Hills (dark spot just right of the robot's thumb) - of course, most of us have trouble finding him sometimes.
Oh, back to the theme of this post, Katherine Cook at Montana Anglican says yes, Anglicanism is worth the witness. Here's an excerpt from her fine essay:
...Anglicanism still is a great bridge between the traditional Christian branches of the Faith and the evangelical Christianity of today. The beauty of Anglican liturgy is that it does reach back to the Churches’ foundations by recalling our Jewish and Catholic roots in its order of worship and readings. We are part of the temporal church ‘universal and triumphant’ when we worship as so many of our other brothers and sisters do in the Faith. Counter-balancing this history is a openness in Anglican worship to the music and worship of our evangelical brothers and sisters. Anglicans can worship traditionally and charismatically, without music or with electric guitars. They can kneel and stand, mediate quietly or hug enthusiastically. This ability to have strong ties with the past, inclusion of current Christian worship, and an openness to what God may lead us too for the future, is a wonderful aspect of Anglicanism. It is a blend I’ve never found in another church.
5 comments:
Dear NorthernPlains:
I am glad there is finally proof of the Epispy satellite system. I have wondered for a long time how they keep track of all of us...
Glad you liked the article!
Tim+,
Hilarious idea, the TEC satellite surveillance of conservative Anglican bloggers on the northern plains. You brightened my day.
And thanks for the fine quote from Katherine Cook in Montana. I wasn't aware of her blog, but it's good to keep reminding ourselves why orthodox Anglicanism is worth fighting for.
Keep up the good work. Who knows when you'll next wind up on Stand Firm again, or T19? Other bloggers are clever with words too, but you have a knack for coming up with great pictures and marvelous captions to go with them.
ROTFL!
Wait! Who's that group of people joining hands near Minneapolis? Are they--MOONING--the surveillance cameras? No---can't be....
I'm glad that Episcopalians like Fr. Timothy and Sarah Hey have maintained a good sense of humor thourghout this current unpleasantness!
I agree with Katherine Cook's assessment of Anglicanism's uniqueness. However, how well do most Anglicans know church history? Or the history of Anglicanism? I think this is the weakest area when it comes to self-understanding.
I attended a Lutheran Seminary and was the only Episcopalian who took the Lutheran Confessions course. It helped me gain perspective I wouldn't otherwise have gained. Now I have additional perspective looking at Anglicanism from Orthodoxy. From here the strengths of the historic Anglican Way seem evident, but clearly under attack. To be both catholic and evangelical in the true sense of those terms requires spiritual rigor.
Good point, Alice - we did a church history course recently and people were both surprised and gratitified to find out that Via Media is not "splitting the difference" between any two poles... we are not a middle way between Christianity and Islam, or between faith and unbelief, or any of that.
Episcopalians have been filled with so many history-distorting platitudes that it takes a lot of digging to bring out Anglicanism's treasures.
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