The Journey Continues

The die has been cast.  Lord willing, I will be confirmed into the Anglican Church on Sunday, May 6, 2012.  I believe this is the route I must take at this point in my Christian walk.  I sadly leave behind my Presbyterian brothers and sisters at my former church as I was a part of the praise and worship band, and it was (and still is) a great fellowship.

Different things led to this decision, which is the culmination of prayer, investigation and interviews over the past year.  Strangely enough I "discovered" Anglicanism while studying Eastern Orthodoxy last summer.  I became intrigued by the idea of the ancient, original Church which came from the Apostles.  All I was really familiar with was the Protestant Reformation (all those denominations) and (as I was always taught) the apostate Roman Catholic Church.  What happened to that original church?  Well, for the most part, it was rolling right along until a thousand years into its existence the Great Schism happened in 1054.  That's when the Western church broke away with all that papal stuff and became the Roman Catholic church.  Of course then, 600 years later was the Protestant Reformation, protesting against the many abuses and apostasy of the Roman church.  What was left of the "original" church (what is now referred to as Eastern Orthodox) has its doctrinal problems as well, but may I say I believe they haven't strayed as far from the true path as the Roman church has.


(I am trying my best to keep this from turning into a history lesson.)


During the first or second century, Christian missionaries made their way to the British Isles.  The Church has been present there in one form or another ever since.  The English church evolved on its own until the Roman church asserted itself and dominated the English until the Reformation of the 1600's.  The term "Anglican" comes from the word "English", thus the church in England is/was the Anglican church.  The English church, along with others, broke away from the Roman church during the Reformation of the 16th century during the reign of Henry VIII.  Some believe this is when the Anglican church began, when Henry wanted a divorce and the pope would not grant it.  So, Henry, being a good politician and not letting a good crisis go to waste, declared himself head of the English church and declared it independent from the Roman church.  Thus, in a sense, the Church of England  began at that point, at least as a part of the Protestant Reformation.  What makes the Anglican church unique is that not only was doctrine corrected from Roman error, but many of the good aspects of the church such as liturgical worship were retained.  Anglicanism has been considered as the "Via Media" or "middle way" between the Protestants and the Catholics.  After the American Revolution, Anglicans in the new upstart nation began referring to themselves as Episcopalians, after the type of church government, to distance themselves from England, since the British, of course, were the enemy.  Over the past 200+ years, as is more often than not the case, the Episcopal church has drifted away from sound doctrine and wandered down the path to apostasy.  In the late 20th and early 21st centuries there has been a movement of Anglican churches severing ties with the Episcopal church and remaining true to God's word and the "Anglican Way".  That is where I find myself today....preparing to join a small Anglican parish in my hometown which is part of the Reformed Episcopal Church, which is a part of the Anglican Church in North America.