{"id":5022,"date":"2019-10-20T14:56:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-20T21:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=5022"},"modified":"2019-10-20T15:02:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T22:02:56","slug":"canadian-anglicans-no-members-attenders-or-givers-by-2040","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=5022","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Anglicans: No members, attenders, or givers by 2040"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Big news from Canada: There will be <a href=\"https:\/\/virtueonline.org\/anglican-church-canada-faces-extinction-2040-new-report-reveals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> no members, attenders, or givers<\/a> in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040. The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Anglican Province other than The Episcopal Church, which has an even greater rate of decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decline of these churches matters for ELCA Lutherans\nbecause the ELCA voted in 1999 <strong>to change\nits constitution<\/strong> to require the threefold sacramental priesthood of The\nEpiscopal Church. The process of building an Episcopal priesthood within the\nELCA is not yet complete, although it continues apace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A big step was taken in August 2019 in the vote of the Churchwide\nAssembly to <strong>ordain deacons<\/strong>, as is required\nby The Episcopal Church. Now the ELCA has three ranks of clergy: bishops,\npriests, and deacons \u2013 the threefold hierarchy of clergy, although not yet\nfully formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More changes need to happen, especially bishops-for-life (once\nelected bishops never stand for reelection) and prohibitions against lay\npresidency, that is, forbidding laity from ever presiding at communion in\nemergency situations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How will ELCA leaders get bishops-for-life? Perhaps another\ntask force to \u201cstudy\u201d the issue, like the ELCA \u201cstudied\u201d having ordained\ndeacons. After a few years of \u201cdeliberation,\u201d the task force will conclude that\nthe ELCA needs bishops-for-life. Voil\u00e0!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ELCA leaders are boiling the frog slowly. They haven\u2019t yet\ntold their people that ELCA seminarians will need first to be <strong>ordained as deacons<\/strong> before they are <strong>ordained as pastors<\/strong>. Episcopalians,\nRoman Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox <strong>require<\/strong>\nthis sequence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps there will be yet another task force to \u201cstudy\u201d the\nissue. More likely, one day in a press release on the ELCA\u2019s works of social\njustice, there will be a sentence like this: \u201cWe think it\u2019s a good idea if ELCA\nseminarians are ordained as deacons before they are ordained as pastors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite all the money and machinations, full communion between\nThe Episcopal Church and the ELCA will never be a full merger, because The\nEpiscopal Church has a better pension plan than the ELCA, and Episcopalians\nwill never share that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big news from Canada: There will be no members, attenders, or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040. The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Anglican Province other than  <strong>The Episcopal Church, which has an even greater rate of decline<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The decline of these churches matters for ELCA Lutherans because the ELCA voted in 1999 to change its constitution to require the threefold sacramental priesthood of The Episcopal Church. The process of building an Episcopal priesthood within the ELCA is not yet complete, although it continues apace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5022"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5033,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5022\/revisions\/5033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}