supdave98 on Nostr: I was raised Episcopalian. Essentially, it started as the Anglican church in America, ...

I was raised Episcopalian. Essentially, it started as the Anglican church in America, but has expanded throughout the world. Still headquartered in the United States. Under the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury. You now have the Anglican communion in the United States developing as a parallel structure also under the archbishop of Canterbury, mostly because like many mainline denominations in the United States in the early 1900s they started to divorce themselves from the authority of Scripture (see Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen,1923). It’s more of a very well funded charitable organization with some in name only Christian roots. There are a number of shelters and food ministries worldwide that benefit from the huge resources they control. Although they would claim the 39 Articles (their confession) and the old Book of Common Prayer (like a church manual) the real authority is what gives greater social influence and most importantly the Zeitgeist of the day. Episcopalians in the US today have little in common with those of the 1700s and 1800s, as their Biblical moorings have been removed. Bishop JC Ryle (see his book on “Holiness”, 1879) would not be welcome today. Many however do welcome this change as it allows them to live their own truth, rather than being subject to an external absolute truth, which they would see as a tool of historic oppression. The mainline Methodist and Presbyterian groups are largely indistinguishable from Episcopal congregations, with the same social and political goals. Modern Anglican (not Episcopalian) writers like John Stott and Graham Goldsworthy stand in stark contrast to the morally flexible and highly political sermons on social justice that you tends to hear in most Episcopal pulpits. While the Puritan in me (who were trying to clean up the Anglican Church in the 1600s) disagrees with how they view the authority of Scripture and how much money goes to their internal infrastructure, they do feed and clothe a lot of people.