Fr. Thom Crowe ⚓️

Went to the hospital yesterday to visit a parishioner. I do 5 things for these. 1. Always go in cassock. 2. I use the 1928 and say a full communion. 3. I discuss the morning’s sermon where able or read scripture if not 4. I anoint and pray extemporaneously 5. Visit without hurry

"We got a Mary, for all the Catholics." At Steadfast Baptist Church, pastor Jonathan Shelley leads the kids into 'bible drills,' with the winner rewarded with smashing statues of Mary and various angelic figures.

"The Scriptures are clear: Christians cannot be out of communion with each other. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. All those who have put on Christ and are in Christ are also united in him to each other. Full stop." livingchurch.org/commentary/…

The REC, the Formularies, and Women’s Ordination I want to begin by saying plainly that I love the Reformed Episcopal Church. I have deep respect and affection for a good deal of its leadership, clergy, and laity. It is precisely because I believe the REC has something precious to preserve that I think we need to be honest about the question of women’s ordination and the ACNA. The question is whether the REC can faithfully maintain its own formularial convictions while belonging to a province that permits different convictions and practices concerning Holy Orders. The REC has historically held that the three orders of ordained ministry—deacon, presbyter, and bishop—are reserved to men. The REC bishops reaffirmed this position in their 2017 pastoral letter, explicitly responding to the ACNA's attempt to accommodate differing positions on women's ordination. That distinction matters. The ACNA has chosen a comprehensiveness that permits jurisdictions within the province to differ over women's ordination. The REC has chosen otherwise. That means the REC and the ACNA do not simply have different opinions among otherwise identical ecclesial bodies; they have different approaches to what belongs within the permissible boundaries of ordained ministry. And that is precisely where the REC's commitment to the formularies becomes important. The question is not whether the Thirty-nine Articles contain a sentence saying, “Women may not be ordained.” They do not. The argument has to be made from the whole formularial conception of Holy Orders, read in light of Scripture and the historic Anglican and ancient understanding of the ordained ministry. The Ordinal is especially significant. The offices of bishop, priest, and deacon are not presented as interchangeable leadership positions. They are ordered ministries with defined responsibilities. The REC has historically understood that ordering in continuity with the Church's received practice and with the apostolic teaching concerning those who exercise authority and preside over the Church. Consequently, the REC cannot simultaneously say, on the one hand, “the historic formularies meaningfully constrain our understanding of Holy Orders,” while accepting an ecclesial structure in which the contrary practice is formally permitted. That is where ACNA membership becomes more than an administrative question. The ACNA's position is essentially one of provincial comprehensiveness: faithful Anglicans who disagree about women's ordination can remain within the same province. That may be a defensible strategy for the ACNA as a coalition. But it is precisely the problem for the REC. If the REC believes that women's ordination is not merely a permissible theological preference but a departure from the Church's received understanding of Holy Orders, then it should not merely ask whether its own bishops currently ordain women. It should ask whether it can comfortably belong to a province that recognizes women's ordination as a legitimate Anglican position. That distinction is crucial. The REC does not ordain women. The ACNA permits women to be ordained. Those two statements can coexist institutionally, but they cannot be treated as though they express the same ecclesiological conviction. Women's ordination is the clearest test of whether the REC's formularial commitments actually set boundaries on its ecclesial fellowship and jurisdiction. If the formularies matter, they must matter when they become inconvenient. If the REC's understanding of Holy Orders is true, then it should have the courage to structure its ecclesial relationships accordingly.

All Anglicans ought be proud of the BCP, and use it daily!