Because I am trying my dangedest to separate these “religio-political” and “religio-social” wars we are engaged in from what the faith is really all about, I don’t necessarily have a problem with identifying good stuff when it comes around – whether from a liberal or a conservative (too bad that those terms have been so stained with hypocrisy, inconsistency, and mud that they mean little anymore).
I have said for a while now that once those who are determined to leave the Episcopal Church finally leave (for good or for bad), and the common enemy of the national Episcopal Church leadership is removed from the equation, the old animosities between these groups with one common enemy will re-exert themselves.
So, the Canon Theologian from the Diocese of Fort Worth, Canon John Heidt, has written an interesting essay after his hearing from the Bishop of Pittsburgh (and head of the Network) give his guarantee that Anglo-Catholics will have a place in the new “Anglican” ecclesiastical body in North America (once the godless Episcopal Church as been put in its proverbial place). His essay spells out one of the age-old fights within Anglicanism – between Anglican-Protestant-Evangelicalism on one side and Anglican-Catholicism on the other. The disagreements between these two camps, and others, will only increase as the influence of a common enemy decreases.
These fights have always gone on – it is what makes the Via Media possible, it’s the stuff of the Elizabethan Settlement, it is very Anglican. The difference that I predict will be realized after the schism is that splitting-up will be so much easier because it will already be in the psyche and experience of the new entity, and the dynamic of schism will only continue along these dividing lines of the age-old animosities.
Before, before the latest example of undisciplined and pride-filled splitting up, these groups fought among themselves, but they stayed together because that is what the Church catholic as experienced within Anglicanism did. Now, it is too easy to break apart, yet again. It will not end with one, single, and gloriously pure “Anglican” entity within North America. There is already too much history to draw from to conclude otherwise. Just wait and see.
Anyway, here is the article written by Canon Heidt’s essay on his blog, Transfiguration. He does a good job detailing the differences – it has only begun!
via: Titusonenine