IntenseDebate - SteveinToronto

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Getting Ecumenical wit... · 0 replies · +1 points

There is a tendency in some Evenjilical (maybe a poor choice of words lets say confessional) circles to chuck the entire Anglican project over the side but I honestly can not think of a Christian tradition that has contributed more to the heath of Evenjilical Christianity in the 20th centenary. Where would we be without JI Packer, Oz Guinness, John Stott, Nicky Gumbel, John McGrath, NT Wright and CS Lewis? Think of how may first rate Evenjilical scholar from other Traditions caped there education with PhD’s from
Anglican Theological Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge? Please don’t give up on us yet there is still hope

God Bless

Steve in Toronto

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Getting Ecumenical wit... · 0 replies · +1 points

The Archbishops North American critics often forget that he has no control over the nut jobs the run the American Episcopalian Church. Or that he pointedly declined to invite Gene Robinson to annual meeting of Anglican Bishops at Lambeth palace. I may be that another man might have done a better job of raining in the Americans Heretics but his predecessor the impeccably Orthodox Low Chuch man George Carry was equally ineffective. I fact the recent defrocking and disciplining of rogue clerics that has occasioned this discussion suggests that even the leadership of the ECUSA is getting the message that they are skating on very thin ice.

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - Getting Ecumenical wit... · 0 replies · +1 points

I guess should be grateful that the discussion has moved away form the slanderous accusation that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a Pagan to the more debatable subject of whether of not his is the best man for job at this time. To be honest don’t know. I am a big fan of Dr William’s writing (both popular and scholarly) everyone who cares about Christianity and the arts should read his recent book on Dostoevsky but he seems to have a knack for saying and doing things that are (I think wilfully) miss represented in the British tabloid press. This is not a problem that is exclusive to Dr. Williams I remember seeing a number of headline declaring that Anglican Bishop does not believe in Heaven in the wake of NT Wrights impeccably orthodox “Surprised by Hope”. Perhaps we should give the British press a break there so used to writing about Anglican heretics that they don’t know what to do with an Orthodox Cleric.

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - The coming evangelical... · 2 replies · +1 points

Does it concern you that the Lutheran position on the lord’s super is unique in contemporary Christendom and perhaps in the entire history of the Chuch? I am not a trained theologian and I can’t read Greek but the argument that since Christ is sitting on the right hand of God the father right now he can not be physically present on the alter makes a lot of sense to me. The reformed position that he is spiritually present seem to be consistent with both a literal reading of Christ’s words and the undeniable fact that he has not yet returned to judge the living and the dead. It breaks my heart that this issue divides us. The irony is that if I did not believe so deeply in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist this issue would not bother me at all.

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - The coming evangelical... · 0 replies · +1 points

In Toronto the Lutherans are now running what was previously the Anglican Book Center and doing an excellent job serving both communities. http://www.afcanada.com/

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - The coming evangelical... · 4 replies · +2 points

Mostly because the LCMS seems to share so much with other orthodox Protestants. The barriers to communion between me and Rome seem much more serious (I can conceive of no way I could ever buy into Papal authority). The Orthodox understanding of the Atonment also seems alien to me but it really bugged me that when I went to a Orthodox service in Istanbul last year and I could not commune with fellow Christians I felt a real connection with.

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - The coming evangelical... · 1 reply · +1 points

One aspect of Lutheran witness that has seceded in penetrating that darkest corners of American Evangelism (like my parent’s basement) has been Arch Children’s books the other would be the “Lutheran Hour” I use to listen to it when I was a kid on Moody radio. John Warwick Montgomery is a bit of a mixed bag. His apologetic ministry seems excellent but his Noah’s Arc fixation and the inflammatory rhetoric he uses when he talks about Islam seems to undermine is credibility in other respects.

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - The coming evangelical... · 5 replies · +1 points

The nearest LCMS congregation is an hour and a half from our house so right now becoming a Lutheran is impractical (there are ELCIC congregations that are closer but they seem to carry with them all the baggage that make my an unsettled Anglican) but if we move back downtown we will certainly consider it. On the other hand and their are a number of excellent extremely orthodox Anglican Congregations downtown as well. If we visited a LCMS church would we be welcome at the rail? Would I be able to join the congregation if I had reservations about some aspects of LCMS doctrine? (I am a sympathetic to “theistic evolution”. I have serious reservations about inerrancy, and am more comfortable with the reformed understanding of “real presence” (I am spiritually transported to heaven to partake of Christ’s body and blood rather than Christ returning to earth) and a lot of what NT Wright has to say seems to make a lot of sense to me. Anglican’s (even of the most conservative sort) seem much more comfortable with doctrinal ambiguity than the confessional Lutherans I have met.

15 years ago @ Cranach: The Blog of V... - The coming evangelical... · 8 replies · +1 points

It’s not just that my Sisters and Father would not be welcome at the rail in my church but that I would be forbidden to take communion in there churches. I would also have to stop going to mid week lunch time masses at the our downtown Anglican Catheral. The Eucharist is a big part of my life (lack of weekly communion is one of the reason I have not defected to our local eveljelicl Presbyterian church-wrenched praise music is another other). When I left the non-denominational church of my youth I felt as if I had entered a Nave of a beautiful cathedral from a small and drab side chapel. Right now entering the LCMS seems to like leaving that Nave for another side chapel (admittedly a lovely and rich one).

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