More Anglican insight

http://fatherjohnheidt.blogspot.com/2005/11/dispensing-with-branch-theory.html

If you are interested in what makes Anglican's tick, this Father John Heidt article fleshes out, and is deeper than his preceding article of interest:


http://catholicinterest.blogspot.com/2005/12/anglican-explaining-why-church.html where he explained Jesus' prayer for unity was already done, finished, all wrapped up.

Some new necessary explanations from Father John:
The Body of Christ is not divided; rather, individual people, though baptized, are separated in various degrees from the church and from one another. All are members of the church but not all to the same degree or in the same way; some are limbs lopped off and others fail to function through disease or spiritual ignorance. No one member has the whole truth; we are all implicit heretics. It’s only when we take our individual or denominational heresies as orthodoxies that we get into trouble.

So we are not divided, just separated. Being all heretics, we should refrain from thinking our heresies are orthodoxies. So necessary to see heresy everywhere, so our denominational heresies can be excused... hey, their all doing it!

And then he gets to Jesus' unity prayer again:

The church is already one, a common-unity, a holy community bound together by Holy Communion. It is not constituted by denominational constitutions nor canons but by a common adoration of the one Christ.

Ah yes, the "one" Christ we somehow adore in common. Which Christ would we be speaking of exactly? Unfortunatly unknown because "No one member has the whole truth".

The Anglican Communion is splitting up because no one can agree on the whole truth. Not having a teaching authority, or a church that claims to possess the Truth, seem to me to be the perpetual seeds of destruction.

There is only one Church that, if she is who she claims to be, contains the entire deposit of Faith. Other churches, with built in "destruct" buttons, can not be that, and do not claim to be that, as the necessary explanations from Father John describe.

In the article, the Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans and Moravians are all lumped together as the one holy catholic and apostolic church. And Father John's article gives great insight into how that little word "one" can be greatly expounded upon to fit the unfortunate circumstances.

And after all this really good insight into the Anglican outlook, there is this:

Though we dare not become Roman Catholic if it means denying our present catholicity, perhaps the day will come when we can remain Anglican and also be Roman Catholic and perhaps Eastern Orthodox and even Methodist, not by seeking our lowest common denominator but by embracing the highest. And when that day comes the world shall know that we are one even as the Father and the Son are one.

Absolutely… when that day comes. Sadly, not today.

And then finally, as Jesus prayed, "the world shall know that we are one even as the Father and the Son are one.