Friday, June 13, 2008

Why I'm Episcopalian

Very recently, my wife and I became a part of the Episcopal/Anglican church and communion. Having grown up Church of Christ and Baptist, I've had many people ask how this happened. So, here's why I'm Episcopalian / Anglican*, in no particular order:

  • Strong commitment to Christian unity and ecumenicism.
  • Strong Reformed tradition within the communion
  • Many of the people who were important to my Christian formation are Anglican (JI Packer, John Stott, NT Wright, etc.)
  • Orthodox
  • Great tradition of working for social justice (think William Wilberforce and Desmond Tutu)
  • Doorway to Church membership: very wide. Doorway to Church leadership: very narrow
  • High view of the sacraments
  • High view of the visible church
  • Apostolic succession (all ordained ministers in the Episcopal church can trace their line of ordination back to the apostles)
  • Great tradition of support for the arts
  • Paedobaptism and Paedocommunion
  • Large presence in many countries and in many cultures
  • High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, and Anglimergent

Obviously, the Episcopal church is not without its problems, but those things, together with a lot of thought and prayer is what led us to become a part of the EC. In addtion, I am now in the process (a very long process) of seeking to be ordained by the EC. I know that is short, but I hope it answers most people's questions.

*For those who don't know the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church are the same thing. The Episcopal Church is just the Anglican Church in America. Episcopal means "of bishops" from the Greek επίσκοπος.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

you would be episcopalian... :)

Samuel Adams said...

Paedobaptism is a relatively new development, eh? I'd love to hear the reasoning.

Today at the Anglican Church in Kigali a child was dedicated and baptized. It was really beautiful to be a part of.

Also today we accepted into the communion a woman who was baptized Catholic. I guess they accepted her baptism in the Catholic church, which I thought was kinda cool.

Anglicanism is very intruiging...

Anonymous said...

I would love if that paedobaptism reasoning was posted on here for those of us reading without your knowledge.
I hope all is well stranger.

dlewis

Anonymous said...

jason doesn't answer his comments.

maybe now he will.

you got served.

mg said...

Episcopal shmystical, we want explanation/justification for the new tat.

rustafarian said...

this is awesome. i was part of the anglican church when i was in scotland, and part of the episcopal church of st. bartholomews in nashville.... but you know, same thing. congratulations. i have 2 friends who are ordained.

i see you mention orthodox, and i assume you mean anglican orthodox theology. have you ever visited THE orthodox church? i've recently attended a couple times, and i find myself agreeing with their theology and outlook on god a lot more than american evangelicalism.

anyway, congrats!