One reason I am an Episcopalian and therefore an Anglican is because our approach is characterized by a certain generosity of spirit toward one another. We can profoundly and roundly disagree on almost everything, but we come to the Font and the Altar together to be finally in indissoluble communion one with another. So I've been dismayed about much of the goings-on in the Episcopal Church (e.g., the Diocese of San Joaquin) and the wider Anglican Communion. Thus, it's been good to read a rather nice summary of what has been traditional Anglican thinking.An excerpt:
Following the first approach, and contrary to much reporting, there are Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, conservatives, liberals, radicals, and everything in between — all knowing where they stand, but, in generosity of spirit, acknowledging the different but faithful approaches to the Bible, tradition, and reasoning that there are legitimately other than their own.
These people believe that the Church is a Noah’s ark, where every animal has to budge over in the straw to let someone else nestle down. This is a Church where friendships count for more than sound-bites, and which understands that something of God is shadowed every time a believer forgets that Christian faith is an exercise in humility. This has been the Anglican spirit at its best — with a resistance to over-definition of doctrine, in preference to worshipping together in common prayer.
That's me too!
Read it all here. (Thanks to Susan Russell for the link.)RFSJ
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