What I Have Learned These Past Five Years: Reflections in Advent, 2008
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Monday, December 15th, 2008
The last few years of struggle within the Episcopal Church (TEC) and within the Anglican Communion have taken their toll on many persons and congregations, and on our common life in a larger way. Every day brings some new report on the impending or already achieved “break-up” of Anglicanism and on the spectacle of “global schism”, even while Anglican leaders insist that this hasn’t happened yet. Many congregations in the United States, and some in Canada, have left their denominations for other forms of Anglican relationship. Even more congregations, including many that have left TEC, have been torn by conflict or bled by tension and malaise, and TEC’s membership has shown a steady and alarming drop in the past three or four years. Declarations affirming something “new” about to begin or demanding something “old” be restored are issued from various groups, and the project of developing “adequate structures” or even canons for this or that ministry, mission, and witness is seen by many as a necessity, even if understood in contradictory ways.
December 15 2008 | Articles