This article by Al Kimel at Pontifications should be carefully read by every serious Anglican. Don’t skim it. Read it. I believe that Al Kimel puts his finger on some essential problems.

But if you’re not going to read it, here are two sections that I thought were golden. Maybe they convince you to read it.

And here is his problem. Anglicans simply do not know what to do with heresy. If only we could sit down together around a bottle of sherry, surely we could reason our way into theological agreement. But theological disputation has rarely been so dispassionate, and no matter how many bottles of sherry have been drunk, disputants continue to disagree on fundamental matters.

Why maintain an Anglican Communion? Anglican parishes already admit all and sundry to the Table. When Anglican Churches abandoned the practice of closed communion, they abandoned any pretence to distinct ecclesial, as opposed to sociological and political, identity. The long-held myth that Anglicanism represents a third-way of being catholic is now largely recognized as vainglorious and theologically untenable.

The latter is a very good point. “Open-Communion” is not Patristic, Catholic, Orthodox, or Biblical. If we really do believe that Christ is present in that little Host, why do we freely give it to the Baptist and Methodist who openly say, “It’s only bread”?

Pontificator: Is the Anglican Communion Worth Saving?

This article by Al Kimel at Pontifications should be carefully read by every serious Anglican. Don’t skim it. Read it. I believe that Al Kimel puts his finger on some essential problems.

But if you’re not going to read it, here are two sections that I thought were golden. Maybe they convince you to read it.

And here is his problem. Anglicans simply do not know what to do with heresy. If only we could sit down together around a bottle of sherry, surely we could reason our way into theological agreement. But theological disputation has rarely been so dispassionate, and no matter how many bottles of sherry have been drunk, disputants continue to disagree on fundamental matters.

Why maintain an Anglican Communion? Anglican parishes already admit all and sundry to the Table. When Anglican Churches abandoned the practice of closed communion, they abandoned any pretence to distinct ecclesial, as opposed to sociological and political, identity. The long-held myth that Anglicanism represents a third-way of being catholic is now largely recognized as vainglorious and theologically untenable.

The latter is a very good point. “Open-Communion” is not Patristic, Catholic, Orthodox, or Biblical. If we really do believe that Christ is present in that little Host, why do we freely give it to the Baptist and Methodist who openly say, “It’s only bread”?

Pontificator: Is the Anglican Communion Worth Saving?