Dave Walker has collected some weird items in a posting at the Church Times blog titled The Church Society on ‘strange vestments and ceremonies’.
And something even weirder crops up in an article for the Washington Times by Julia Duin titled New Anglicans split on women.
I queried retired Eau Claire, Wis., Bishop William Wantland, an old friend and an ardent opponent of ordaining women. He reminded me that 22 of the ACNA’s 28 dioceses do not allow female priests. It’s a system known as “dual integrity,” dioceses that differ on a question where Scripture can be read both ways agree to respect and live with each other’s views.
I asked him if he wanted the ACNA to eventually outlaw ordaining women entirely.
“Of course. That’s our mission,” he said. “Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. The priest at the altar is an icon of Christ. What image is that if the person at the altar is a woman? It’s a lesbian relationship.”
“FCA UK” LOL.
Speaking of strange vestments, I know of a priest (in another state, west of here) who actually still wears a maniple. Now does anybody else know a priest who still wears these things? And on the low-church side, there are a few in my diocese who wear preaching tabs, an equally odd item.
Time for ol’ Bill Wantland to put away the Viagra: it’s sending his mind to some bizarre places…
“… a lesbian relationship.” He should perhaps see a shrink about this kind of thinking…does he see an image of heterosexual sex when he sees a man celebrate the Eucharist? What a creepy way of thinking.
Clearly Mr. Phillips does not know what he is talking about. Has he never heard of the English Ornaments Rubric?
While the Puritan clergy (400 years ago as well as today) avoid vestments, altar carpets, etc. High Churchmen do not. Mr. Phillips seems to think that “Ritualism” began with the Catholic Revival of the 1830s. He has (conveniently?) forgotten the Laudian reformers of the early 1600s who used incense, crucifixes, rich copes, religious statues, dignified ceremonial, etc.
But, then, evos tend to have very selective memories, don’ they?
Thank you, Simon, you just made my day!!! I’m laughing and crying at the same time. No wonder “Jesus wept” and continues to weep.
I know I’m a non-Christian, and am a lost lamb, but I always thought that the priest was a representative of the Son, not the Son Himself.
Interestng that ACNA is willing to recognize “dual integrity” within its own house, but not recognize it on GLBT issues when it comes to the wider church.
Choirboy – the clergy at my parish wear maniples regularly.
If the good Bishop’s theory about gender and worship were true, wouldn’t it also be true that the male members of the Church were involved in some sort of homosexual act in seeking union with Jesus?
“”It’s more important to be part of an organization preaching the Gospel as the Word of God,” one cleric said.” As opposed to us nonACNA types who preach…….what exactly? Seriously, what do we preach, if not the Gospel? ‘Cuz I always thought that when the priest, or deacon if we have one, intones “The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to X”, he actually WAS reading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to X. Are you suggesting he processed to the centre of the nave with a copy of the Necronomicon tucked secretly inside the Gospel book… Read more »
choirboyfromhell, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your post. Are you trying to suggest that there are Anglican parishes where the priest doesn’t wear a maniple?
It is quite obvious that the new ‘Anglican Extreme’ church will split in due course on the women’s ordination issue
“The priest at the altar is an icon of Christ. What image is that if the person at the altar is a woman? It’s a lesbian relationship.” – Bishop Wantland (F.i. F. USA) This really is a bit of scary theology from a supposedly learned ‘Man of God’. His fear of lesbianism is so deep that he suggests that a woman priest, per se, entertains a sexual relationship with Christ (as a woman) at the altar. How bizarre can that be? Sexuality apart, (though not for Bp.Wantland), the gender issue is surely, at least peripherally, but no less theologically, addressed… Read more »
toby forward: I can’t imagine your parish as well…I thought that communion was a once a month affair and the priest took off his tippet and put a stole on..
“Of course. That’s our mission,” he said. “Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. The priest at the altar is an icon of Christ. What image is that if the person at the altar is a woman? It’s a lesbian relationship.”
just breathtaking
I use the maniple in my parish. I’ve got quite a collection, since they have fallen out of use. As a friend used to say, in light of the symbolism, “Leave it to Rome to discard the symbol of service and keep the symbol of authority…”
There is also a practical function, in that it allows one to “feel” the edge of the altar without having to look at it.
And ain’t Bill Wantland a hoot? Then again, his Christology has never been sound…
Bishop William Wantland was quoted as saying:
-snip-
“‘Of course. That’s our mission,’ he said. ‘Christ is the bridegroom and the church is the bride. The priest at the altar is an icon of Christ. What image is that if the person at the altar is a woman? It’s a lesbian relationship.'”
Is he saying that a symbolic lesbian relationship would be a bad thing?
I just don’t understand the Bishop’s comment. It doesn’t sound very logical.
“I am told there was once an execrable “Prayer for the Perfidious Jew”, and Christians were not required to kneel for it.”
Ford, some Christians still use it, unfortunately,
http://freudig.blogspot.com/2009/03/orthanglicanism.html
re the maniple: I should imagine that more than the simple art of manipulation will be need to bring together the dissident groups of the new ACNA province. There will be those (like the protestant Archbishop of Sydney, who wears collar and tie to address his Synod meetings) whose taste runs to jeans and stole for Baptisms, who have to co-exist with the ultra-montane former bishop Jack Iker, whose links with the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham have recently gained him credibility with the A.C.s. How on earth these sartorially-challenged clergy (on the one hand) and the vestmentality of… Read more »
Tomorrow, Saturday, the Diocese in Europe prays for Simon Sarmiento in the normal course of things, and I’d like to suggest that all of who gratefully read Thinking Anglicans should do likewise – it’s also the 4th of July, when some of us might say ‘free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I’m free at last’, so Thank You Simon, and many prayers in your direction.
Ford, I hope you realize that my “lost lamb” remarks were partly tongue in cheek. I thank you for your words. As far as prayers for the conversion of pervidious Jews, I know that a concern by some Jews over bringing back the Tridentine Mass in regular use in the Roman Catholic Church is precisely that phrase. I for one feel that the Roman Catholic Church is the ultimate authority over how to practice its faith, and therefore mostly none of my business. But I would like to think that with the work started by Pope John XXIII, greatly expanded… Read more »
Tobias: I supposed if any of us used the phrase “dual integrity” we’d get kicked in the mouth. Yes, simply amazing… I once got off of a ship in frozen Sturgeon Bay WI and had to fly out of Green Bay. I called the primary downtown parish church there (it was Sunday night) and asked about if an evensong was sung. The cleric who answered the telephone replied that they’d never perform an evensong, but that they were going to have ‘benediction’. My response was “huh?”. I wonder if the concept of “dual integrity” of us bantering in the spirit… Read more »
CBfromH, “Dual Integrity” sounds to me a bit like the old concept of having one’s cake and eating it too. Or perhaps the Dodo’s maxim: “Everybody has won, so all shall have prizes.” Or perhaps something to do with Schroedinger’s Cat? Pluriform truth, anyone? Relativism? Dare we say, Inclusivity? I think not. For this sudden attack of “Big Tentism” is halfhearted if the tent is soon going to be replaced with a perfect temple in which the mission is eventually to get rid of all that confusing lesbian imagery, and replace it with the good old fashioned image of a… Read more »
“The cleric who answered the telephone replied that they’d never perform an evensong, but that they were going to have ‘benediction’.”
That’s weird – whenever I’ve been to Benediction it’s usually been after Evensong.
“in that it allows one to “feel” the edge of the altar without having to look at it.”
Sort of like an ecclesiastical antenna? Or whisker, if you want to make a cat analogy.
BillyD, in keeping with Schroedinger, let’s definitely go with the cat’s whisker.
And now I really must turn off the computer and finish packing, as the flight to Anaheim is very early tomorrow morning… Peace to all. T.