Friday, May 16, 2008

Anglicanism: Orthodox or Progressive?

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8248

[VirtueOnline] 16 May 2008--There are now two very distinct understandings of the Christian Faith at work both in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, especially in the US and Canada, as well as in New Zealand, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. They can best be summed up as orthodox, faithful, biblical, evangelical, Anglo-Catholic on the one hand, and liberal, revisionist and/or progressive (a relatively new word) on the other.

The progressive view was echoed this week by George Pitcher, the new Religion Editor of London's "Daily Telegraph", in an opinion piece where he argues that the Church of England isn't dying...it just needs to evolve."This is not a charter for trendy, relevant vicars. But at the risk of summoning discredited spirits, there must be a third way. It's part of the Church's genius that it evolves contextually in our society while maintaining eternal constants. It needs to meet its new-millennial people where they are, rather than where they used to be. It needs to redevelop the pluralistic and tolerant voice that has been at the heart of Anglicanism at its best," he writes.

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