My Thoughts on ACNA Provincial Assembly 2024 

your general assembly as better than mine that's for sure

I’m a theologically conservative Anglican in an ACNA parish, and my wife is a very faithful Roman Catholic. Gosh, even rumors for a shared communion between Anglicans and Catholics makes my heart ache. I desperately hope it happens! But if not in my lifetime, we will all share in the one banquet at the marriage supper of the lamb, by God’s grace.

Man, I’ve been struggling with a lot of angst as an ACNA parishioner about the future of our communion. This video has made me feel a lot more peaceful. It seems like these issues are being resolved almost organically and through the work of the Spirit in myriad small pockets through out the church. Thank you for this!

Hi Joe, it gives me great hope for the future of Anglicanism in seeing young men like you and Jonah Saller of Mere Catholicity effectively communicating the faith and practice of classical, historic, Anglicanism. Thank you for your work!

Your thoughts on the generational trends in the ACNA is also what I’ve experienced

Very good video. Thanks for the updates and thoughts.

We are going to make it, lads

Redeemed Zoomer rallying people to reconquista the mostly-gone PCUSA, while Anglicans in the mostly-alright ACNA seem eager to jump ship because of WO. Courage & patience, friends!

I'm currently in TEC and am going to enter discernment soon, will apply to Nashotah House. I'm trying hard to stay in the TEC and be a voice of opposition to the progressive takeover...But I am leaning more heavily each day to join the ACNA.

I'm a member of the Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK). Good review here, thanks.

This video was so excellent and so informative that I not only watched to the end, I went ahead and joined as a member of your community. This is exactly the kind of content we need to see in the Anglican community!! Hopefully the Lord will answer our prayer and send a conservative Anglican church planter to Northern Alberta soon❤

I'm an acolyte in the APA (in the Continuum) and I desperately pray for union for the G3 and the ACNA. I know the REC has talks with the continuum, but the fact that they're allied with a group that "ordains" women just really prevents any actual dialogue. I hope things can get sorted out so that american anglicanism can heal this split

I visited TAS in Ambridge for a discernment retreat prior to Assembly. Pro-WO was fairly entrenched and assumed from the female homilist, conference speaker, and significant number of female clergy. No non-WO voices came from the leadership. This might not present the full faculty perspective, but that strong presence in both the seminary and local diocese tempers any sudden shift toward a ban on WO. Praying for your province as they seek to heal their rifts and reorganize.

Full disclosure: I sometimes poke a bit of fun at folks like you and River Devereaux , pointing out that even Paul waited three years before he started a RU-vid channel. But, I must also disclose that when I was a young Anglican, more than forty years ago, I was hot to trot and taught classes and became the lay assistant to the rector and such, all before there was RU-vid. So, I find your thoughts very fascinating. I did not leave the TEC in the right way, I now think. Instead of going with the REC, I got caught up in the Old Catholic Church, who have become as woke and crazy as TEC. So, 2.0, I find much of the ACNA very attractie, and I am tempted to 'join' the ACNA, but it also has ordained women. In addition, many Anglican parishes that I have experienced, either in person or on RU-vid, are more North American than Anglican. If indeed lex orandi is lex credendi, then the watering down of liturgy and music is not encouraging. However, if one considers what the average Anglican worship was like less than a century ago, it does seem possible that the traditional ways of teaching (traditional) theology may overcome the guitar music and thank you Jesus prayers. Certainly non-geographical dioceses are a big problem. In the area where I live, and there is no ACNA parish in my little town, it is very confusing that there are overlapping dioceses, which don't get along very well. And of course the Diocese of South Carolina, on the west side of the Cooper River from Mount Pleasant, home of the Diocese of the Carolinas, is rather large, but also rather aging. And rather low church. What I have not heard anyone say about non-georgraphical dioceses, btw, is that the ACNA shares that problem with the Orthodox Church(es). North America is an odd place. However, bottom line and such, the ACNA seems to be the most orthodox part of God's One Holy Cathoic Church in North America that is seriously working to carry out Jesus' admonitions to His Church in both the 25th and 28th chapters of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Post script re:reunion with Rome. It would at least give Roman Catholics an alternative places to worship as Rome burns around them. I don't see any advantage to the ACNA. Thank you for your enthusiastic reporting. Keep on keeping on.

Thrilled to hear about talks with Rome going somewhere! I'm a former Evangelical now ACNA for life, but I live in Canada where ACNA churches are extremely sparse outside of a few centers so I've always been worried about what happens if I move somewhere without an ACNA church. I refuse to receive Communion from the Anglican Church of Canada and I don't really have any other live options in the protestant sphere, so my only option feels like the Roman Catholic Church. I'm not particularly interested in converting and I don't believe I will, but if I ever did it would be to receive the Eucharist should I be deprived of any other options. I'd be thrilled to be able to receive Communion in a Catholic parish without having to officially convert! Women's ordination isn't worth keeping if it means never achieving some level of communion with our Roman brothers. Despite being in a diocese that has women's ordination, I have yet to meet someone in favour of it. I suspect this is generally true across the ACNA. Perhaps in the early days there was more of a felt need to include women priests who were already ordained into the ACNA, but I suspect there aren't many women within the ACNA pursuing the presbytery as most of the women who support women's ordination would likely feel more at home in the more liberal denominations anyways. My thought is that the best way to transition away from it as a whole would be simply to stop ordaining new women priests across the board and not allow those who remain to be rectors as the Archbishop has done. I'm not interested in forcing them out, they can always leave if they want, but we need to put an end to the practice while accepting what's already been done.

As an theological conservative and an unhappy Episcopalian I was so excited to find the ACNA. Being geographically isolated I enthusiastically reached out to them via their website expressing both my isolated situation and my deep desire to come into communion with the ACNA. I enquired as to how I might come into communion or become a member. I received no answers, I didn't even get a warm welcome. They just told me to contact one of two parishes. One is 40 mountain miles away and the other is 55 miles away. I am retired and cannot afford to drive 80 miles or 110 miles roundtrip each week. That cold response made me rethink membership/communion with the ACNA. How very disheartening! Oh well, thankfully I know the Father is as Hagar put it, "the God who sees me." He knows my heart.

I found there was a Celtic Orthodox Church, but there is only one in America. I am wondering how much of that history has been lost and preserved. Definitely up my alley as an Anglican, history wise 🙂

I'm writing a pamphlet with the working title "what is anglicanism" for my acna church plant that just transitioned to be independent of our sending church this month. We are meeting in a rented church space that a lot of members of the community frequent and we want to be able to give people a short introduction to anglicanism. I'd LOVE to hear if you have any of these "anglican renassiance" resources already in some form!

I am so thrilled to have found the REC in the ACNA. We are Presbyterian/Baptist background and thought we’d have to become Orthodox or Catholic. I am over the moon to be apart of this Anglican Renaissance!

Q: Can you explain the arguments for and against communion at a wedding? And does everyone partake of communion of Just the couple in an Anglican wedding ceremony?

It seems to me that the AB has very little impact in terms of provincial policy in reference to the ordination of women. Foley beach has been AB for 10 years and he does not support WO. It is up to the bishops by a two thirds vote to amend the acna constitution which at present allows for each diocese to choose on this.

Women can't be ordained. It's impossible. I accept no women in Holy Orders, period. It's unbiblical and anathema.

It seems weird to have not decided the issue on female ordination before starting the ACNA in the first place 🤔

There is this notion that Women's Ordination is about Conservative Theology. If it was the Orthodox Catholic Church and Roman Catholic Church would not have Abbesses(essentially Bishops), Nuns (essentially Presbyteresses), and Sisters(essentially Deaconesses). We Anglicans can also move to such a false distinction OR we can train them in Conservative Theology and Ordain them but keep habit and vestments distinct. A total ban will not work because of natural justice and affirmative action will also not work because a bad female Presbyter is as bad as a bad male Presbyter. So the claims against Women's Ordination as if it is dogma obscures the line that it is the same class of Church discipline as clerical celibacy which we have rejected. Flirting with Roman Catholic affiliation is worse than Women's Ordination and if Women's Ordination will stop this double mindedness among Anglo-Catholic churchmen so be it. I am tired as a High Church Evangelical Anglican of having to help Anglo-Catholics learn the high points of Anglican theology and history because they have been schooled in Roman Catholic propaganda

Man i remember watching your videos when you were only at 900 subscribers, genuinely you are the one who got me interested in Anglicanism. one of the best channels on RU-vid and Anglicanism

I’m drawn to the Anglican Church, but I am conservative morally and theologically. I believe in inerrancy. I don’t support women pastors or LGBT marriage or ordination. Is there a place for me within Anglicanism?

Obviously that was a Catholic church building, so I am wonfering how Anglicans got permission to use it? I believe its agianst cannon law for another group to celebrate the Eucharist at a Catholic altar. Also, I might add that the congregations that are growing the most within ACNA are VERY low church, and the presbyters dont even wear clerical collars. If this trend continues, ACNA will end up being very low church and evangelical. I might slats state the the ONLY parishes that are growing in England are also very low church, with most only baptizing adults by immersion. There are videos of this if your interested

WE ARE SO BACK BOYS Third?

So basically you are saying the "center" of Anglicanism is the Old High Church/Laudianism? Not Puritan Calvinism or Roman Catholicism, but closer to our Lutheran Brethren.

Awesome to hear you went to your denomination’s assembly! I went to the PCA General Assembly a couple weeks ago. It really is a great time!

Happy 100th comment!

Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights.

Sounds fun

Pray for unity with Rome.

Very informative!

I saw an interview with Archbishop Wood and another with Jeff Walton, that the controversy over WO is mainly among those who don't seem to understand how the dynamics works, meaning they are online writing articles and petitions that go nowhere because this matter has been addressed among the bishops who don't see the compromise as an issue. Beyond that, as for those who ACNA priests, the perception was that they should know a lot more about ACNA polity than was indicated by their petition(s). The dioceses decide whether women could be ordained, as per the province's founding documents. In Stephen Wood's diocese, women can't be rectors. It was on Anglican TV ministries, the interviews: ru-vid.com. In his diocese, there are a number of female priests and deacons. They don't seem to be rare. The controversy and rumors online don't do justice to the reality. The bishops are collegial and get along well enough. They aren't experiencing tensions over this. As for the ordained women wearing clerical collars? You said the ones you met were deacons. Female deacons are far more comfortable in conservative church places like the ACNA, because female deacons aren't as controversial. As for those attending who were priests, they might not have been there, or they might not have been wearing their collars. They have nothing to prove. Their bishops ordained them, and they work in their dioceses. As you said, people know your views. Perhaps they didn't want to be bothered by people bent on harassing them for being ordained.

John 21:16 “He saith to him againe the second time, Simon sonne of Ionas, louest thou me? He saith vnto him, Yea Lord, thou knowest that I loue thee. He saith vnto him, Feed my sheepe.”

It is somewhat weird seeing recordings, and so many of them taking place, during service.

Thanks for your review. I think the issue of WO is a more powerful force than you want to acknowledge. As far as the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox allowing Anglicans or any Christian denomination to receive the Eucharist is perhaps a little too optimistic. To receive the Eucharist implies that you accept the Catholic Church as the true church. The Orthodox Church does not even allow Catholics to receive Communion even tho both the Catholics and the Orthodox recognize the validity of the other church's orders.

Second?

Start the way you want to “finish” from infancy to maturity.

This is encouraging. Thank you

First?

Where can I find info on the diocastria of the Catholic faith talking with Anglican leaders on taking communion at Catholic Churches?

RE woman's ordination: what about a diocese where the bishop is slowly seeking to lower the intake of new female ordinands? Everyone knows that the strong reaction provoked by trying to sack all the female clergy would be counter productive. What if instead, you heavily discouraged new women from applying, eg by saying they cannot be rectors, and so in 20-30 years the number of female to be dealt with is minimal?

Why would the Anglicans even want to be in communion with Rome. The issues of the reformation still exist, has Catholic propaganda been so effective that even Anglicans believe it was just over a divorce now. The Reformation was not only necessary, the issues are still relevant to this day. If you want to commune with Rome, convert but don't drag the entire conservative Anglican church down with you.

What are your thoughts on the REC?

It would be crazy if Rome permitted ACNA into communion. It would be a huge admission on their part.

Yound Anglican or Yound Catholic; If you are a Anglican, know that even your ministers know that you are worshipping on the Catholic day of worship (Sunday) and not the Biblical Day of worship (Sabbath Exod 20: 8-11). And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day… The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the Church, has enjoined it.” Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, pages 334, 336. Anglican: “Many people think that Sunday is the Sabbath, but neither in the New Testament nor in the early church, is there anything to suggest that we have any right to transfer the observance of the seventh day of the week to the first. The Sabbath was and is Saturday and not Sunday…” Rev. Lionel Beere, Church and People, September 1, 1947. “Reverend Philip Carrington, Anglican Archbishop of Quebec, sent local clergymen into a huddle today by saying outright that there was nothing to support Sunday being kept holy. Carrington definitely told a church meeting in this city of straightlaced protestantism that tradition, not the Bible, had made Sunday the day of worship.” Toronto Daily Star, October 26, 1949. “The Bible commandment says on the seventh-day thou shalt rest. That is Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday.” Phillip Carrington, quoted in Toronto Daily Star, Oct 26, 1949 [Carrington (1892-), Anglican archbishop of Quebec, spoke the above in a message on this subject delivered to a packed assembly of clergymen. It was widely reported at the time in the news media]. Catholics acknowledge that people who have the Bible as their sole authority should be 7th Day Adventist ( Saint Catherine Catholic Church, Sentinel Vol 50 1995) and that is Rome's Challenge today regarding Sola Scriptura either they are right and you follow them OR 7th Day Adventist church is right and you follow them. There is no other choice (Immaculate Heart website, December 2003)