The Anglican Way

I particularly like the comments of Deacon Derek below:

• Deacon Derek Says: July 13th, 2005 at 5:44 pm
• I respect those who leave the Episcopal Church and avail themselves of the “Roman Option” and join the Roman Catholic Church (However, I agree completely with the Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon when he says that “. . .to flee to Rome is not an option for an Anglican who is schooled in the classic Anglican Formularies and accepts the Reformed Catholicism of the Anglican Way. Rome teaches and requires certain dogmas and doctrines, rites and ceremonies, which to the Anglican go far beyond what Scripture teaches or allows. Informed Conscience forbids this route, even when the mind sees the “attraction” of the Roman route”).
  
• What I dislike is the attitude they often take towards Anglicanism when they get there–pointing out that Anglicanism was (is) doomed to failure and that it cannot (will not) last. I disagree–it can survive if it lives up to the vision of its “founders” (Jewel, Hooker, Andrewes, etc). If we look to the 1604 canons of the Reformed Church of England we see that clergy were (and are) bound to teach nothing but that which can be proven by the Holy Scriptures and that which was taught by the ancient Catholic doctors and fathers of the Church. The “via media” was never meant to be a catch-all body of Anglo-Baptists (who treat Baptism as a “dedication ceremony”) and those who want every doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church (transubstantiation, purgatory, immaculate conception–but without the See of Rome)–if we read Jewel and Hooker we see that the Church of England’s via media was a search for truth between two groups in clear error (Rome and the extreme protestant sects). Where the wheels of Anglicanism have fallen off is where both schools of error are allowed into the teaching of the Church and labeled “pluriform truths.” Anglicanism can survive and flourish if it continues to be Anglicanism and not a body consisting completely of compromise.
  
• Confessing Reader Says: July 13th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
  Derek, just wanted to let you know that I appreciate the Reformed Episcopal voice you’ve brought to the weblog.
  
• Deacon Derek Says: July 15th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
  Thanks for the expression of your appreciation. I just want Anglicans to remember that we are Anglicans and have a proud and vibrant theological and liturgical heritage of our own (comparable to the Orthodox and the Lutherans) and we don’t need to seek our validation in comparisons to others. We aren’t “Presbyterians with a Prayer Book,” nor are we Anglo-Baptists, nor are we 19th century Roman Catholics without the Pope.
  As Bishop Cosin said at the Restoration, we Anglicans are “Protestant and Reformed according to the principles of the Ancient Catholic Church.” Where Anglicans have failed as a church is where this history is ignored and something else (hyper-Calvinism/Puritanism, secularism, or imitation of 19th century Roman Catholicism) is put in the place of our own defining aspects (the Prayer Book, the Ordinal, the Articles, and appeal to the Fathers of the undivided Church).
  

From: http://reader.classicalanglican.net/?p=204

I suppose that Deacon Derek is from the Reformed Episcopal Church. Unfortunately, his denomination is now merging with an Anglo-Catholic denomination that is for all practical purposes identical to the Roman Catholic Church in doctrine and practice. If only Reformed Anglicans had the guts to stand against the Anglo-Catholic onslaught!

I would agree that Anglicans are not to give up Anglican worship to become Presbyterians or Puritans. We should not become just another broad Evangelical church without a Prayer Book. But that is not to say that Anglicanism is not moderately Calvinistic or that it is not high church in the Evangelical and Reformed Anglican sense of it. The Anglican church is high church without the prayers to Mary, the fake religious orders of celibacy, and the compromising of the 5 solas of the Reformation and the 39 Articles of Religion.

I say it again. It is a total mistake and a travesty that the Reformed Episcopal Church is merging with the Anglican Province of America.