It was great to be with the Primus, the Most Rev Mark Strange this morning in St Mary’s in which he talked about authority and what he’s been discovering since being elected as Primus.
Here’s his sermon:
Here’s the forum conversation we had after the service in which we talked about he Anglican Communion, the Scottish Episcopal Church, how we relate to the Church of Scotland and other churches in Scotland and lots more:
Here’s the Q and A with questions from the congregation:
What was the character of the debate? If one believes that the admission of women to the threefold ministry of the Church was an extension of an existing doctrine, not a doctrinal change, and that the dropping of the ‘filioque’ clause from the Creed wasn’t a doctrinal change either (nobody is compelled to deny that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son), the change to the doctrine of initiation was the most important doctrinal change made by the Scottish Episcopal Church not just in my lifetime but perhaps even in the SEC’s history. It amazes me that it seems to have been so uncontroversial.
(I don’t say I necessarily disapprove of the change. I’m quite happy not only for the unconfirmed but also for the unbaptised to be admitted to Holy Communion and would turn away no-one – except perhaps ++Judas Williams, and even then probably not – from the altar. But I can’t understand how a Church can teach two contradictory things at once.)
To a certain extent, saying two contradictory things at once is part of the consequence of having old liturgical formularies alongside modern ones, I think.
(If you are not going to say something new, what’s the point in producing something new after all).
The modern descriptions of marriage in the 2007 marriage rite don’t seem to me to be entirely consistent with the marriage rite of 1929, for example.
It is the way we live now.
Well, as I said, there were several of us who spoke against the change, for one reason or another but it was passed by a fairly high majority, I think.
It seems to me that there is just about every view about initiation into the Christian church that has ever been held is currently also held and practised in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Indeed, there are varieties of practice and procedure within congregations and even within families.
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