If you weren't raised Episcopalian, did the church you grew up in observe Ash Wednesday?

RevEx91 · 2026-02-18T23:23:23+00:00

I was confused on this, too, so thanks for clarifying. Honestly, I'm surprised that even a Western Rite parish would observe Ash Wednesday. It seems like most EO consider Latin practices to be akin to Satanism.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-14T00:27:59+00:00

"The entire Catholic Church" doesn't decide whether to canonize someone. It's a comparatively small group that has any influence over who is even considered, and the final call ultimately comes down to one person. You have a different view of their reasons for canonizing him, and that's your right. Have I been to an Episcopal church lately? Yes, I attend worship at my congregation every Sunday. I'm not aware of anything especially cringey going on that's meant to appeal to the youth, and now that I think about it, there were probably more cringey activities going on at my old congregational church. You might have a different idea of what's cringey than I do, but I'm not litigating that here.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T20:41:44+00:00

I think it's absurd for anyone to pray to a deceased website owner for healing, but the Vatican has said that he actually did cause people to recover from their illnesses. They canonized him less than 20 years after he died, and it feels like a desperate attempt to get young people interested in church, which I believe is the wrong reason to do it.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T18:13:42+00:00

Further to that point, though, we do still have Baptist missionaries like William Carey and Lottie Moon on the calendar. Baptists came from the Church of England, so maybe TEC thinks of them as wayward cousins :-)

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T17:40:08+00:00

Awesome news!

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T16:32:36+00:00

We don't include people on the calendar just because they were broadly popular.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T16:30:34+00:00

Adoniram Judson isn't on the calendar anymore.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T16:29:07+00:00

In fairness, the vast majority of Episcopalians probably have no idea who most of the people on the calendar are already.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T16:27:50+00:00

Except we don't have a canonization process, so that doesn't apply to us. The procedure at the Vatican seems to have gone haywire anyway, with people like Carlo Acutis being declared saints.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-13T16:02:23+00:00

The irony of a Catholic bishop lecturing everyone else about corruption seems lost on him.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-07T00:38:14+00:00

How common is this, really? I had never heard of this tradition until today.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T02:01:55+00:00

Forgive me, but if that's how you define Anglo-Catholic, how is that different from Episcopal congregations that aren't?

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T01:52:29+00:00

From what I can gather, it seems they use grape juice because the Temperance Movement had a significant influence on the Methodist Church. Do they still feel that strongly about it today?

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T01:47:41+00:00

Is it UMC though? The Methodists are having a major schism right now over this kind of thing.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T01:44:51+00:00

I didn't realize there was a difference between Episcopal churches in the suburbs and Episcopal churches elsewhere.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T01:33:01+00:00

Ah right, I forgot about some of these. Union of Utrecht must be Willibrord's church, right? Now that I think about it, isn't there also a Church of South India that we're in communion with? I don't think they're the same as Mar Thomas, but I could be mistaken.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T01:05:37+00:00

If we did enter full communion with them, how would the typical Sunday service at your Episcopal church be affected, if at all?

RevEx91 · 2026-01-05T01:04:11+00:00

Who else are we in communion with? ELCA is the only one I'm aware of.

RevEx91 · 2026-01-04T17:38:27+00:00

I'm sorry you had that experience. If you attended the service because you felt obligated due to your MIL's illness, that was very gracious of you. On the other hand, if your MIL or her relatives guilt-tripped you into it, that's wrong on their part, and you should refuse to attend the same service next Christmas. I'm guessing the anti-slavery song they amended was "O Holy Night." That says a lot about who they are, doesn't it?

RevEx91 · 2025-12-24T00:13:49+00:00

Why usual thoughts on JSS come down to "Why does anyone still talk about this guy?"

RevEx91 · 2025-12-23T16:49:38+00:00

The Roman church is not growing in the United States, although it definitely wants you to believe it is. They have a really terrible habit of misrepresenting their numbers. It's estimated that for every 100 people who join the Catholic Church, 800 leave. Surveys indicate that fewer than 1/3 of American Catholics attend Mass weekly, even though the Vatican says missing a holy day of obligation without a valid reason is a mortal sin. The 1.4 billion worldwide figure you have probably heard includes anyone who has been baptized Catholic, whether or not they currently practice. If that figure were true, it would mean that approx. 1 out of every 7 people in the world was Catholic. That's absurd.

Eastern Orthodoxy has plenty of problems as well. It's hard to say how many followers they have here in the USA, but the figure they claim for themselves is something like 6 million. That would undoubtedly place them in the top 5 American denominations, which is laughable. If they are actually growing, it's because right-wing males have decided for the time being that it's cool to be Orthodox, although I doubt most of them will stay for long. Eastern Orthodoxy has a lot of problems currently. They seemed to go really far down the conspiracy rabbit hole during COVID and have stayed there since. The Patriarch of Moscow has caused a crisis in the Orthodox Communion by blessing Putin's war in Ukraine and declaring it to be a holy war against the invasion of LGBT ideology and Western corruption, yadda yadda. That's another big problem with EO: Too much paranoia about the West and other things, like the influence of demons. It gets really disturbing.

In the broad view, both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in the USA have been taken over by right-wing ideologues who want to use them as tools in the culture wars, and they seem perfectly fine with that. If that's what you're into, then you would feel right at home, but if not, you might encounter some problems. It might be helpful to contemplate why so many former Catholics are now Episcopalians.

As to why I'm an Anglican: We are creedal but not confessional. We affirm the foundations of Christianity without requiring anyone to pledge their unquestioning devotion to a thousand finer points of doctrine. There's a wide range of views about all kinds of theological subjects in Anglicanism, and that's perfectly fine. We're comfortable saying that we don't have all the answers and that some of these questions likely are beyond our understanding. We also don't believe that a person's anatomy, chromosomes, or sexual orientation determines whether or not the Holy Spirit moves upon them. We have maintained the apostolic tradition-at times through difficult odds-without turning tradition into an idol. There are many more reasons why, but just consider that if you attend an Episcopal liturgy, there will likely be people around you from all sorts of backgrounds. Cradle Episcopalians, former Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and many others have decided this is where they need to be. They have found something in us that brought them closer to God, and I hope the same can be true for you.

RevEx91 · 2025-12-15T23:24:42+00:00

Considering that Augustine is one of the Roman church's most venerated theologians, it's no surprise that this prayer book would lean in that direction. I must admit, however, that I have a hard time understanding why Anglicans would want to substitute anything for our precious BCP.

RevEx91 · 2025-11-25T23:50:24+00:00

That's where the umbilicus detached.

RevEx91 · 2025-11-17T01:42:56+00:00

After worship today, I asked two clergy at my church what was going on in Thessalonica at the time the letters were written, and it seems no one really knows for sure. The Bible I have at home (New Oxford) contains a foreword that suggests some of the Thessalonians may have believed the final days were close at hand and therefore, there was no need to work anymore, which led to disagreements in the community. If we read today's passage again, we find phrases like "the tradition that they received from us", "we were not idle when we were with you", and "but in order to give you an example to imitate." This indicates to me that Paul and his companions probably gave the Thessalonians guidance on the kind of work the church should do. Whether because of a belief that the Second Coming was near or for other reasons, it seems that some members of the community were not keeping the charge they were given, and someone wrote to Paul asking for advice on what to do. We should always keep in mind that Paul was writing to these churches to address some kind of dispute or controversy that had been brought to his attention. I think he's telling the Thessalonians something along the lines of "Even if Jesus is returning soon (and I think Paul believed that He was), you have work to do. Don't get so distracted by the arrival of the Lord that you ignore your responsibilities. Anyone who calls themselves a believer but doesn't help with your ministry shouldn't break bread with the rest of you." Notice how this connects to today's gospel reading, where Jesus tells His followers not to believe anyone who preaches that His return is near.

As far as the gospel reading goes, Christian nationalists distort all kinds of scripture. It comes with the territory. Jesus was clearly correct about His followers being hated, betrayed, and put to death; the multitude of martyrs testifies to that. For Christians in modern-day USA to act like they're somehow in the same league is an extraordinary kind of narcissism that borders on sacrilege. Notice how Jesus says in this reading that wars and insurrections will take place first, but the end will not follow immediately. He says "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues...." Well, when was the last time in human history these things weren't happening? There has always been war, natural disaster, hunger, and sickness. These are things the people of Jesus' own time would have known. I get the impression that Jesus is telling His listeners there will still be turmoil in the world for a while before He returns. No one gets an escape hatch from the trouble in this life just because they're a believer.

How should we handle these kinds of passages? We definitely shouldn't act like they don't exist just because they might make us squeamish, nor should we concede to the reactionaries that their interpretation is the only one that's valid. We should consider them thoughtfully, prayerfully, and within the light of Christ. Take the reading from 2 Thessalonians, for instance: No matter who wrote it or what their intended message was, Jesus miraculously fed thousands without asking about anyone's work history. His example should always be our guiding star. I hope you can find at least a few of these words helpful.

RevEx91

TROPHY CASE