A New Year, A New Anglicanism?
We are at the beginning of 2004, New Year's Day, also the Naming of our Lord day in the Christian calendar. I am convinced 2003 will be known as the year the Anglican Communion broke down. This is indeed a tragedy, but perhaps it is not all that bad. First, Anglicanism is not really breaking down. Liberal Western Anglicanism, which has been in rapid decline for over 30 years is what has really breaking down. The fragile synthesis between liberal and conservative during the modernist period cracked and fell apart in 2003 as the hyper-modernist revisionists pushed their agenda too far, against the pleas of our Anglican family. Of course by 2003 nobody even cares. With less than 800,000 regular Sunday worshippers in the Episcopal Church, and similar numbers in other Western Anglican locales, the issue is only big for a few of us. If this recent schism, initiated by ECUSA, is not enough to prove the decline, perhaps the rapid decline in members over the last 30 years will prove it.
Second, and worthy of a new paragraph, is the symbol of the ancient mythical Phoenix and its relation to this whole issue. In order for the Phoenix to be reborn, first it had to die, and only then could the new bird rise from the remains of the first. Western Anglicanism's death, or rather, the modernist liberal Anglicanism of the last 40 or so years' death, is not a bad thing, so long as it leads to something solid, timeless, and ultimately, something biblical and catholic.
2004 can be known as the year when the Anglican Communion is reborn after dying in modernism. 2004 can be a year of renewal within the Anglican Communion, and a returning of the Anglican Church in the West to a biblical, evangelical, and catholic body. In the process, the Church will rise from the ashes of its death. The church will be ready and open for postmodern persons. Strangely, many evangelicals are discovering what the Anglican Church has known all long, but forgotten. They are looking to Rome and Constaninople because Anglicanism in the West is wedded to modernism. We could be getting an influx of postmodern men and women seeking exactly what we Anglicans have...when we are conservative. We have timeless truths, ethics, and practices. When we are modernist liberal we are simply perceived as a bunch of upper class former hippy political lobbiests, stuck in another era and in antiquated ideologies.
I hope and pray that 2004 will be the year of the Phoenix, when the Anglican Communion in the west will rise again under strong yet gentle leaders, imitating the doctrines and ethics of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray our bishops will lead us into renewal and out of the Episcopal Church, out of a prime symbol of dying modernism. However, it is possible 2004 will not be the year of the Phoenix, but the year of the waffle. Yes, it may be the year when our leaders continue to compromise with the Episcopal Church, with modernism, and ultimately with a dying system that hinders the work of spreading the gospel and catholic faith. And then, a few years down the line, we can be still cling to that so-called rich ECUSA tradition of our youth, even if nobody but us happen to be members. We will have to see!
We are at the beginning of 2004, New Year's Day, also the Naming of our Lord day in the Christian calendar. I am convinced 2003 will be known as the year the Anglican Communion broke down. This is indeed a tragedy, but perhaps it is not all that bad. First, Anglicanism is not really breaking down. Liberal Western Anglicanism, which has been in rapid decline for over 30 years is what has really breaking down. The fragile synthesis between liberal and conservative during the modernist period cracked and fell apart in 2003 as the hyper-modernist revisionists pushed their agenda too far, against the pleas of our Anglican family. Of course by 2003 nobody even cares. With less than 800,000 regular Sunday worshippers in the Episcopal Church, and similar numbers in other Western Anglican locales, the issue is only big for a few of us. If this recent schism, initiated by ECUSA, is not enough to prove the decline, perhaps the rapid decline in members over the last 30 years will prove it.
Second, and worthy of a new paragraph, is the symbol of the ancient mythical Phoenix and its relation to this whole issue. In order for the Phoenix to be reborn, first it had to die, and only then could the new bird rise from the remains of the first. Western Anglicanism's death, or rather, the modernist liberal Anglicanism of the last 40 or so years' death, is not a bad thing, so long as it leads to something solid, timeless, and ultimately, something biblical and catholic.
2004 can be known as the year when the Anglican Communion is reborn after dying in modernism. 2004 can be a year of renewal within the Anglican Communion, and a returning of the Anglican Church in the West to a biblical, evangelical, and catholic body. In the process, the Church will rise from the ashes of its death. The church will be ready and open for postmodern persons. Strangely, many evangelicals are discovering what the Anglican Church has known all long, but forgotten. They are looking to Rome and Constaninople because Anglicanism in the West is wedded to modernism. We could be getting an influx of postmodern men and women seeking exactly what we Anglicans have...when we are conservative. We have timeless truths, ethics, and practices. When we are modernist liberal we are simply perceived as a bunch of upper class former hippy political lobbiests, stuck in another era and in antiquated ideologies.
I hope and pray that 2004 will be the year of the Phoenix, when the Anglican Communion in the west will rise again under strong yet gentle leaders, imitating the doctrines and ethics of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray our bishops will lead us into renewal and out of the Episcopal Church, out of a prime symbol of dying modernism. However, it is possible 2004 will not be the year of the Phoenix, but the year of the waffle. Yes, it may be the year when our leaders continue to compromise with the Episcopal Church, with modernism, and ultimately with a dying system that hinders the work of spreading the gospel and catholic faith. And then, a few years down the line, we can be still cling to that so-called rich ECUSA tradition of our youth, even if nobody but us happen to be members. We will have to see!
