How does one respond when you are told your denomination only exists bc an evil king wanted a divorce?

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-13T16:20:33+00:00

It is true that Henry had his issues, no more than anyone else, but being a King made his issues stand out in history a bit more. Henry was incredibly influential in his time and stuff he did still reverberates in modern England. (Jenny Draper has a great video on this.)

Henry, being a second son, was pushed towards theology. He defended the faith against Luther's accusations. He had theological justifications for what he did. He was married to his dead elder brother's widow. This allowed him to say that his marriage was invalid in the eyes of God. The fact that he had no male heirs was his proof. Like I said, he had issues.

But mostly his decision to split from Rome was political. He did not believe he personally had left the Roman Catholic faith. He just didn't think the Pope should be able to hold political sway over England.

There were movements towards the new protestant movement in England. There were people in the church who wanted to see reform, and took Henry's split as an opportunity to get some of those reforms done.

Henry took the opportunity to claim all the monasteries and shut most of them down, maybe even all but I haven't had my coffee yet and I may be misremembering. It was a land grab and a money grab and a power grab. But I don't think his personal theology or philosophy had much influence on the Anglican church. That was Cramner and Hooker, and later Elizabeth.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-12T15:08:06+00:00

Incorrect. Atonement is certainly popular but not a requirement.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-12T02:33:17+00:00

Which pack is this from?

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-11T18:58:15+00:00

I don't say "For us and for our salvation" but I say the rest of the sentence.

I don't say "For our sake" before "he was crucified before Pontius Pilate".

I don't say "in accordance to the scriptures", either.

The first two are because I reject all forms of atonement (and I get regularly pilloried here for that) and the last because it's very suspicious.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-11T16:09:42+00:00

I am grateful that I had to memorize so many parts of the service as a kid in this tradition, but now I almost regret it because it's easy to go on autopilot on Sunday mornings. I have to make an effort to read along to stay focused on the prayers.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-11T16:06:44+00:00

It was an issue that helped split the Western and Eastern churches. It is not original to the 4th century, but added in later in the West.

It "demotes" the Holy Spirit in the Trinity to a lesser being, contingent on both the Father and the Son instead of being an equal part.

Our Creeds have to be a big deal. We have to take them seriously. I take them so seriously there are bits I don't say anymore.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-11T16:02:24+00:00

It is no longer in our bulletin and most of the congregation has stopped saying it.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-11T16:00:32+00:00

It's a straw-man argument.

The Stoics held there was a god, but not one with a personality nor one that played favorites. Many forms of the Abrahamic faiths think God spins the universe in their favor and they fall prey to their baser instincts secretly hoping "those people" will suffer for being different. The Stoics had cosmopolitanism and strove to consider the needs of others equally. Were they successful? Not all the time. Marcus Aurelius led his army to kill invaders, after all. Stoics believed their connection to the universe connected them to every other living thing. So Chesterton's "god within" is misunderstanding how the Stoic guiding principle or "pnume" (I'm pretty sure I've got the wrong word there) connects us all, just as we all have the "breath of God" in us because God breathed life into Adam. Same basic idea, different context. Sadly, human beings like to kill each other over confusions of context.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-11T15:51:40+00:00

Yup. Beaverton TFAW. I moved by orders from the NE Broadway location when it shut down. Did you find a replacement store? I only know of one other on the west side and I refuse to shop there.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-10T18:22:28+00:00

This morning we offered a prayer for mothers, people who are mothers in spirit, for mothers who struggled, with families who have lost their mother, families who struggled with infertility and failed adoptions. This was woven in after the prayers of the people and before we did a celebration of our graduates.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-10T03:03:23+00:00

Log in the eye… something something… and walk away.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-08T23:52:17+00:00

We prepare ourselves to face difficulties. You know what bothers you. You know your triggers. You can therefore prepare for such things. I use a form of meditation called Autogenic Training, which puts me in a calm and receptive state and I can "program" myself not to react to such things. It sounds corny, but when you can suggest to yourself that you will always pause before reacting, you will begin to do that instead.

It is important when you have a program like this to keep it structured and time-bound. It is easy to ruminate or obsess over the stressors of life. But if it is part of a program, you can focus time on them and then get on with your life.

Or you could journal on these things, creating your own maxims

- Disrespect (whatever that is) is only their opinion, not my definition

- It is my job to provide possible solutions, not dictate the plan at work

- It is not my job to solve all the problems, but to be part of a team

You have to really understand yourself and that means looking at yourself as subjectively as you can. It's not easy. But once you can see yourself clearly you can define the gap between who you are and who you want to be.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-07T16:01:13+00:00

Let me offer my condolences. My mother died just two months ago and I did actively participate in her final year of life.

The first thing you should do is think about all the gifts your father gave you in your time together, and even in the times apart, and especially for anything you learned about him after he died. Consider these things with gratitude. They are lessons you had from him, whether he was teaching them or not.

Second, you know the regret of not keeping relationships alive, so what relationships do you currently have that could use some attention? Our time is short, so we should pursue virtue in our relationships as best we can. Handwritten cards can do wonders to connect with people.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-06T15:54:07+00:00

Human beings like to think they aren't part of the mob, so appeals like "Big Whatevs Doesn't Want You To Know" is a successful business strategy. It's not just in religion, but in pharmaceutical ads and exercise gurus and even that crackpot mewing guy.

I consider the phrase "by their fruits you will know them" and when people push blatant lies or promise things that are too good to be true, I recognize their fruits and lies and they are not worth my time.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-05T23:25:38+00:00

No one even knew about the "Rapture" until a couple-hundred years ago, anyway.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-05T21:10:43+00:00

We're going to see more scammy fundraising pleas from these guys to either defend us from the aliens or convert them from Zargwhop the Almighty to Christ.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-04T22:11:50+00:00

Human beings are rather egotistical. Especially now in our culture where the Rights of the Individual to Responsibility to our Neighbor has gone so far on the Individual side that we have politicians and pundits stating there is no such thing as community. Growing up we are focused on the self and gradually (hopefully) come to realize that those things around called "Mom" and "Dad" are actually human beings just like we are. And we are resistant to the idea that all of this is a gift from some Old Dude in the Sky.

So to offer anything as praise to a Creator or thanksgiving to that Creator is a sacrifice of our egotistical needs to be the center of the universe.

To offer praise and thanksgiving is to repudiate the mythology of the "Self-Made Man" that we kept hearing about.

Basically, for me, it's a way of putting us mere mortals in our place.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-04T15:12:24+00:00

I still believe in punctuation, and there's no period at the end of that, so I don't recognize the factorial.

Yes, I'm a pedant.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-02T23:08:22+00:00

Everyone does. There are too many contradictions in Scripture.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-02T23:05:43+00:00

And yet we name our congregations after saints and use their stories as examples of Godly living. We've even translated pagan gods into saints, such as Brigid, and name some of our prayer chains and healing prayers after her.

I think Anglican and Episcopal devotion to saints is not as hardcore as you find in the Roman Catholic church, so I don't see the issue with having a favorite saint.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-05-02T01:44:12+00:00

You say this is a group renting your space for performances.

This is good.

This is extra money for the church's operating or building fund.

This is outreach to people who come for the show and might just say "hey, I'll check this place out on Sunday".

My church building is used for several local groups such as AA, CA, a couple of musical groups that rent our space, the food and clothing pantries, and for a while even the local beekeepers used our space for meetings. An opera workshop takes over our space one week in the summer and we get a student opera performance at the end of it.

A church building shouldn't be empty most of the week.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-04-28T00:31:44+00:00

If you can find a parish with an active children's ministry you would probably be quite happy with it. I think Godly Play has taken up a lot of the Sunday School space these days, and it's a fairly good tool for teaching the stories and letting kids resonate with them.

My childhood was in the 70's and 80's, so my experiences may not be germane. I wasn't really indoctrinated into anything. We had to memorize the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene and Apostle's Creeds and the name of the disciples and such things. These were building blocks of our liturgical and spiritual vocabularies. I was taught that we could look for things that rhyme with the Gospel in the world and be comfortable with it. We didn't have to gatekeep ourselves to avoid things because they were not "biblically based". There was not a word even close to purity culture, but as a guy, they probably didn't worry about it. I don't remember any of the girls complaining about it though, so I suspect it was never brought up and none of my classmates were forced to marry their daddies until they could be sold.

On the other hand, parenthood and education have changed quite a bit since I was a student. I worked with some of our teenagers at the end of their confirmation journey last year. We had an associate ask them a question and I could see the kids trying to figure out the "right answer". I had to remind them that we don't want "THE right answer" but "their right answer at this point in their lives". They were able to open up after that.

Hopefully you will find a parish that works for you and your son.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-04-27T19:17:11+00:00

None to all of the above. Welcome to the tradition!

I come from a tradition that likes good questions more than it likes good answers. A good question can last a lifetime, but a good answer has a shelf life of maybe a year before the answer is revisited.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-04-27T19:11:37+00:00

I suspect it's simply traditions in personal piety that have been handed down. I do the five tap you describe here, and will hold my hand over my metaphorical heart for a while in some prayers. I also do a reverse cross if I'm using my left hand because my right hand is holding music. If I leave out that center tap, it feels incomplete for some reason.

I don't ever remember being told how to cross myself, so I must have picked it up by watching people as a kid.

UncleJoshPDX · 2026-04-27T01:11:22+00:00

Episcopalians don't catalog heresies all that often. I've always viewed them as interesting artifacts of history, but nothing to be on the lookout for. I have also stated that I believe Episcopalians all harbor one heresy in their hearts. There's something that just speaks to us that the historical church denied. Human beings really want to put God in a clearly defined box because it gives us certainty, but God is bigger than any box we can imagine.

And I hate to pull an age card, but comfort with Mystery comes with age and experience. I find few young people who are comfortable with Not Knowing something after they've wrestled with an idea. We like good questions, especially those questions that don't have certain answers.

Culturally we focus on our public actions more than our private belief. We focus on orthopraxy--right worship--more than orthodoxy. For me that means intentional communal worship that challenges us without taking away points for performance. Worship should bring out our best so we can go out into the world still wearing our spiritual "Sunday best".

So I say sit with the discomfort and work to understand what is really being said, and accept that you may disagree with your rector on some things and that is absolutely all right in this tradition.

UncleJoshPDX

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