One under god and others: Your comments would be much easier to read if you wrote “you’re” rather than “your” when you mean “you are”.

Crabsy: In the early 1960s, the vicar in the Walcha Anglican Church instituted confession. I don’t think it lasted but the experience does raise a small question about your statement that that the Anglican church is non-confessional.

Glen C:

"Confessional" in the sense you are using it is certainly quite applicable to the Anglican Church. That's all about confessing one's sins to a priest. Traditional Anglicanism makes confession to a priest available to people, although the practice is now quite rare in comparison, say, with the Roman Catholic Church.

But I was talking about was confession of faith, rather than confession of sins. Rather than giving assent to a set of doctrines that define the denomination as a separate and distinct brand -- i.e. reciting a Confession of Faith before others to show that you're a dinkum Anglican -- participation in the liturgy of the prayer book is emphasised. Anglican clergy are sworn to uphold the catholic and apostolic faith of the ancient undivided church, not some exclusive version of Christianity. Some other churches insist on their members reciting a Confession of Faith usually derived from an ancient founding father. In the early days of the Anglican Church Richard Hooker wrote "We confess without confessing."

I hope I've clarified the matter.

It isn't me you need to convince, crabsy, it is yourself.

>>I feel that I belong with my church and that it nourishes me spiritually...<<

Were it not for this kind of occasional protest, you come across as a perfectly sane, logical person who has seen through all the unnecessary trappings provided by the church, and is making his own way through what he may or may not believe in.

I reached this conclusion because you do not sound like any Anglican that I have ever met. Which also led me to observe that what we are seeing here is a "struggle to reinterpret religion in your own image".

Nothing wrong with that. At all. It is just the constant references to that particular version of your religion, one that is entirely at odds with your views, that appear strange.

For example, I cannot imagine the Jensen brothers sharing your opinions.

Do they?

Pericles:
The Jensens represent a peculiar pocket of Anglicanism that seems to be found only in the Sydney Diocese. They tend to be quite out of kilter with the Anglican tradition in many basic ways and are constantly at loggerheads with most other dioceses in Australia. But because the Sydney Diocese is extremely wealthy by comparison with others it can and does make a big splash in the media. This leads the general community to think of Sydney Anglicans, and Archbishop Jensen especially, as the image of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

I am appalled at many of the things Jensen says, and at the way Sydney fundamentalism uses its financial and media power to pull strings in Australia and overseas -- e.g. to campaign against homosexuals and against allowing women equality as clergy and bishops. They have led a movement globally, gathering in a few other diocese from Africa and other parts of the world, to inflict their fundamentalist ideas on all of us and radically divided the worldwide Communion.

The Sydney actions cause much anger in Anglicans elsewhere, including in WA where I am living.

Fair enough, crabsy.

>>I am appalled at many of the things Jensen says, and at the way Sydney fundamentalism uses its financial and media power to pull strings in Australia and overseas -- e.g. to campaign against homosexuals and against allowing women equality as clergy and bishops.<<

It does bring into question, though, the nature of Anglicanism, if it comfortably covers the spectrum from your own attitude towards the Creed to Jensen's attitude towards women and gays.

Not to mention the Nigerian rump, who apparently still believe in demons.

On balance, it would appear unnecessary to reinvent any facet of Anglicanism. There's obviously something there for everyone.

Crabsy,
Only what exists can insist, but it need not insist

To say God "does not exist but insists" contradicts this self-evident proposion. If God "insists" then He exists.

While i'm admire your struggle, your ideas appear incoherent.

By "insist" do you mean guidance?

salaams