The Gospel and the Catholic Church
by Michael Nazir-Ali, CEN:
We live in a time of paradox. On the one hand, interest in things Anglican has never been greater. Evangelicals in many parts of the world continue to be attracted to the ways in which Anglican ministry is ordered and in the worshipfulness of Anglican liturgical tradition. The Orthodox churches have long recognised a kinship with Anglicans, with some of them even making limited inter-communion possible. Pope Paul VI declared that when the Roman Catholic Church was able to embrace her ever-beloved sister, the Anglican Communion, nothing of authentic Anglican Patrimony would be lost.
On the other hand, in the last 20years or so, Anglicans have been engaged in a deadly game of self-destruction of ‘who blinks first’, with some churches defying the plain teaching of the Scriptures, the constant teaching of the whole Church, the mind of the Communion, and of those with whom they should have most in common, to capitulate to the seductions of western culture on matters like human sexuality, marriage and divorce, the sanctity of the person as made in God’s image and other issues.
At the root of this defiance is a misplaced confidence in human reason and fashion and a denial of revealed truth.
In the light of such developments, both positive and negative, some of us have felt that there is a need to bring together all those who value the Anglican theological, liturgical and ecclesial heritage to listen and to learn from one another, as well as to challenge each other, even as we seek a way forward to preserve and to enhance our common patrimony.
Anglican Patrimony Conference details
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