Anglicans preparing defection to Roman Catholic Church

[Michael]

From bad to worse. They are leaving the allowance of ordination of women/homosexuals in their denomination to instead be justified by works and hocus pocus. Yikes.

FoxNews.com - British Anglicans Preparing Mass Defection to Roman Catholic Church

 

[C. M. Sheffield]

Why not? There's no longer any real distinction anyway and the Catholics have all those pretty thingies to play with!

 

[Peairtach]

Anglo Catholics

These people are already sadly spiritually confused and deluded.

It is only because of God's grace to us that we are not among them.

 

[JonathanHunt]

Anglo Catholics might as well be catholics. Apart from the liberal ones, they will stay in the CofE because they can do whatever they want without consequences.

A sad business.

 

[Scott1]

I've heard it said Anglicans have a Calvinist theology, an Arminian clergy, and a Roman liturgy.

Perhaps, in the confusion, it seems the Roman system presents a traditional, more orthodox approach when contrast to the modernist inventions they are experiencing.

Or so, it seems, without scriptura sola and scriptura tota.

 

[Peairtach]

And Erastian in their view of Church and State, at least in the fact that the Queen is the Head of the CofE, the Queen and Prime Minister are involved in appointing bishops, and bishops sit in the House of Lords, although that last point may be Papalism, the view that the Church should rule over - or in - the State (?)

 

[JBaldwin]

The Anglicans as a whole have never really left the catholic church even though there are some "low church" Anglicans who have abandoned most of the catholicism. And truthfully, they've been seriously heading back to Rome for awhile now. It is amazing the numbers of Anglican priests who have bailed and gone to the catholic church with hardly ripple in their religious lives.

 

[Michael]

Interesting...I wonder how many Catholics will turn Anglican in support of the ordination of women/homosexuals? This might be a wash.

 

[Philip]

The Anglicans as a whole have never really left the catholic church even though there are some "low church" Anglicans who have abandoned most of the catholicism. And truthfully, they've been seriously heading back to Rome for awhile now. It is amazing the numbers of Anglican priests who have bailed and gone to the catholic church with hardly ripple in their religious lives.

That's a rather unfair statement, given that Anglicanism (before Archbishop Laud) was largely reformed. If you go and read the wonderful poetry of George Herbert, that most Anglican of Anglicans, you will find that the theology is that of grace. What the early Puritans objected to was not the theology, but the ecclesial structure and the liturgy (the latter is more or less a moot point today).

Anglo-Catholicism as such only started in the 1830s with the Oxford Movement.

 

[discipulo]

The Anglicans as a whole have never really left the catholic church even though there are some "low church" Anglicans who have abandoned most of the catholicism. And truthfully, they've been seriously heading back to Rome for awhile now. It is amazing the numbers of Anglican priests who have bailed and gone to the catholic church with hardly ripple in their religious lives.

That's a rather unfair statement, given that Anglicanism (before Archbishop Laud) was largely reformed. If you go and read the wonderful poetry of George Herbert, that most Anglican of Anglicans, you will find that the theology is that of grace. What the early Puritans objected to was not the theology, but the ecclesial structure and the liturgy (the latter is more or less a moot point today).

Anglo-Catholicism as such only started in the 1830s with the Oxford Movement.

It seems to me you both are right in different ways,

Toplady, that great defender of Calvinism, who knew the Church from within, wrote exactly the works below

to defend that Calvinism had been the historical doctrinal stand of the Anglican Church, but in the teaching of many clergy

that was not so, the Roman strata, was since the AC inception wider and deeper than just its Ecclesiology

and it kept saddly coming to the surface...

Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, 1774

The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism, 1774

 

[dudley]

From bad to worse. They are leaving the allowance of ordination of women/homosexuals in their denomination to instead be justified by works and hocus pocus. Yikes.

FoxNews.com - British Anglicans Preparing Mass Defection to Roman Catholic Church

Michael you hit the head on right on the nose with this statement "to instead be justified by works and hocus pocus. Yikes."

Michael Hokus pokus is the essence of Roman catholic teachings. I can not phatom or understand why any protestant who understands church history would ever go back to Rome. You know I am an ex Roman catholic and a recent convert to Protestantism and even more recently a convert to Presbyterianism. I left the catholic church in 2006 but I now believe I was a Protestant before I officially left and did not realize it. I too believed In salvation by faith alone long before I left the catholic church in 2006.

The more I study Historical Theology, the less Rome appeals to me. How to explain why studying history led me away from Rome and not towards it is hard for even me to do.

My Roman catholic teacher friend said to me this week “The RCC is in a pretty unique position. We read the same Gospels, and Scriptures“(discounting Apocrypha)
I wish I could be ecumenical, and sometimes I think it's an emotional desire... but all I have to do is read some Romish dogma and I'm happily back in my reasoned “Reform Presbyterian mindset“.

I began to realize gradually that I was not truly a Roman catholic in my beliefs as a Christian long before my departure for the Roman church in 2006.

The 2 things that initially made my mind up to leave the RC church and explore Protestantism were the Pope and the papacy and most definitely the current pope Benedict. The other and more important was my love for the sacrament of the Lords Supper or the Eucharist as RC’s prefer to call it.

I went to mass every Sunday and received communion, but it began to become a ritual of the same each week. Secondly the current pope began to reintroduce the adoration of the sacred host in a gold monstrance and began re storing those practices like 40 hours devotion etc. which were de emphasized after Vatican II in order to find more common ground with our separated brethren. I was one of the RC people who was glad to see the practice disappear after Vatican II. I always found it repugnant and a distortion of the true meaning of the sacrament.

My love for the sacrament allowed me to begin to do some reading by Protestant theologians even before 2006 and while still a RC. I began to question the RC doctrine of Transubstantiation which we were hammered to believe as children and even told the Protestants do not have Jesus truly with them in the Eucharist like we do, they see it only as a symbol. I began to realize when I read that I was not being given the whole truth.

I discovered early that the Lutheran view of the sacrament , and especially the Lords Supper Consubstantiation is actually it is very close to the Roman catholic view. I discovered in my reading that my views were closer to the Methodists and Presbyterians and I began to believe as did John Calvin that we are spiritually fed Christ’s Body and blood at the service of the Lords Supper. In an article “The Contemplative Shape of Calvin’s Eucharistic Thought” by Michael J. Pahls the following is a beautiful explanation of what we believe as Presbyterians and Reformed Protestants. It is what I now also believe. He says of Calvin’s teaching on the Lords Supper “This “Spiritual” feeding on the body and blood of Christ are symbolized for the believer, whose faith is nourished, sustained, and increased. This is, of course, the point of the symbol. Calvin does not halt at a mere parallelism, however. As has been seen, the Eucharistic symbols have an instrumental function. The Holy Spirit, then is active in the Supper, feeding the believer by nourishing, sustaining, and increasing the mystical union “just as” the believer partakes of the bread and wine. The elements thus retain their substance, but the spiritual reality cannot be separated from them. Calvin, however, has maintained that the body and blood of Jesus Christ are locally present at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. How, then can there be a true feeding?
The high water point of Calvin’s mystical turn is in his theology of the “Eucharistic Ascent”. Rather than dragging Christ down to earth under the form of corruptible elements, Calvin argues that believers must be “raised up” to heaven in order to feed upon him there. In the 1539 edition of the Institutes, he argues,
But if we are lifted up to heaven with our eyes and minds to seek Christ there in the glory of his Kingdom, so under the symbol of bread we shall be fed by his body, [and] under the symbol of wine we shall separately drink his blood to enjoy him at last in his wholeness. For though he has taken his flesh away from us, and in the body has ascended into heaven, yet he sits at the right hand of the Father

Calvin takes a similar tack when offering critique of the Roman Catholic practice of adoring the consecrated host. The Lutheran view of consubstantiation in my mind is as much an abomination of the sacrament as the roman catholic teaching of transubstantiation. Far from being a sanctioned practice to facilitate Eucharistic contemplation, Calvin says this practice is an idol which evokes a vain imagination: “For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself? In this there is a double transgression: for both the honor taken from God has been transferred to the creature, and he himself is also dishonored in the defilement and profanation of his gift, when the holy Sacrament is made a hateful idol”

I do renounce the Roman catholic teaching of transubstantiating and the practice of Eucharistic adoration practice and I also see the roman catholic teaching of transubstantiation not only perverting the Lords Supper, it denies Chalcedon and the dual nature of Christ both human and divine. It also leads to many gross superstitions.
The mass which I once appreciated and even loved I now see as a man made form of worship which unfortunately denies the central message of the Gospel which is Christ made the perfect sacrifice and that alone was the sacrifice to redeem all who place their faith in him alone. I no longer miss the mass and the rituals. Truth is I have come to appreciate the Lords Supper as a Presbyterian even more than when I was a Roman catholic. I like the variety of services at the FPCOM, I have gone to the 8 AM communion service , the 9:30 AM traditional service and I frequently now have been going to the 11 AM family worship. I now agree completely with Calvin’s teaching on the Lords Supper and I believe that teaching as a Presbyterian.

There are so many things, I have now renounced about Roman Catholicism .I couldn't begin to start, popery, purgatory, praying to Mary and the saints,....the list goes on! Once a Catholic is born again, he would see the errors of Roman Catholicism, and come out from it, that's what happened to me. You would know that you couldn't remain under the pope's authority, and be a born again Christian, most of them don't know they need a savior, and that they are lost - they follow the Roman Catholic teachings, which is the broad road. I never heard any true sound preaching of the Word of God as a Roman Catholic.
I love the Gospel centered service in the Presbyterian church. I am truly now not only getting the full Gospel message , I am learning the Gospel . I took a course on Pauline Epistles when in a Roman catholic college… but never saw the truth of the message Paul has in Ephesians that it is by faith alone we are saved…The Gospel of John talks about Gods generous gift of grace…none of this side of the message however was ever emphasized in the RC church, I don’t think I need to tell you why………
I came to believe as my studies and exploration of Protestantism progressed that I was a Protestant and I was not a truly a Roman catholic even before I became a Protestant. I realized that I believed in the catholic faith ;and Rome departed from catholic teachings. I believed in Tradition as apostolic teaching, not mere transfer of authority. I believed in Merit ;Christ's Merit, not man's merit. I believed Mary is the Theotokos ;And points to Christ, not herself for devotion. I believed in Authority ;of Scripture above church, councils, and popes.

Yes the roman catholic church has the same Gospels and many same creeds but she perverted the Gospel and the message of salvation with her papist and Romish false dogmas. I finally decided to become a Presbyterian and seriously explore the Reformed protestant churches when I began to see that I thought a lot like Calvin. I believe Calvin and the reformed Protestants truly restored Christ’s church to what she was intended to be from the beginning in the first 200 to 300 years after Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and His resurrection. John Calvin and Knox and Zwigli and other Reformed leaders restored the church to the uncorrupted pure form Christ and the apostles gave us. It is what I am now a Presbyterian and a Reformed Protestant and I think a Calvinist.
“I believe Therefore, the Roman Church, officially at least, fell away from that truth, more than 400 years ago at the Council of Trent, leaving that truth to be recovered by those "protesting" from the point of view of Holy Scripture.

No one, being obedient to God could persist in such serious error and remain in a system that promotes it, and denies the centrality of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We're accountable for that.