October 12, 2020 Show with Rev. Ricky McCarl on “The Anglican Identity Crisis”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 12th day of October 2020.

And my guest for the very first time comes to me by a very strong and enthusiastic recommendation of my dear friend

David Waterman, who is a field associate at CBMC, which stands for the, what does it stand for?

Christian Businessmen's Connection. CBMC, Christian Businessmen's Connection in Central Pennsylvania.

And Dave said, you know who you should get on the program? You have to get this really fascinating man, who is also an excellent preacher and teacher,

Reverend Ricky McCarl, on your show for an interview. Reverend Ricky McCarl is a hospice chaplain and also the vicar of Good Shepherd Anglican Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And today we are going to be discussing the Anglican Identity Crisis. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Reverend Ricky McCarl.

Thank you. It's great to have you on the program. And by the way, I want to, before I move on to our discussion with Reverend McCarl, before I forget,

I want to give a plug to the Christian Businessmen's Connection in Central Pennsylvania by letting you know where you can contact them if you are a

Christian businessman and you'd like to find out either the closest

Christian businessmen connection to where you live or you might even live in the

South Central PA area and you want to connect with these very same men at the

Central Pennsylvania Christian Businessmen's Connection, where David Waterman is. Their website is centralpa .cbmc

.com. That's centralpa .cbmc .com.

Well, before I move on to our summary of your salvation testimony, which is something that we do here as a tradition on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio whenever we have a first -time guest, tell our listeners about Good Shepherd Anglican Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Sure. Well, technically we're still a mission parish. We're still rather small.

We've been around for about 12 years. I was called to be the vicar back in January of 2020, and we've seen some phenomenal growth since then, but then

COVID hit and everything's been kind of difficult. The mission is actually in the

Diocese of Pittsburgh. That's the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, and I'm ordained in the

Reformed Episcopal Church, so I'm on loan to the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, and it's been a pretty remarkable experience thus far.

Wow, that's quite a trip from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. So you're still in that same regional jurisdiction for the

Pittsburgh Diocese. Yes, unfortunately, we're the only Orthodox Anglican parish.

Well, I should take that back. There is an Anglican Province of America parish over in Lancaster, but the

APA and the ACNA are not in communion with one another. So I'm good friends with the priest over there and have preached there before, but as far as Anglican churches of North America churches go,

Good Shepherd's the only one for miles. My wife and I were attending

St. Stephen's Reformed Episcopal Church down in Elleryburg, Maryland for three years before we took this parish.

So geographically, no matter what diocese we're with, we're pretty far away. Now I have a listener who has joined me at my biannual pastor's luncheons on several occasions.

I can't remember his first name, but his name is Bishop Sloan. Do you know where he is connected? I do not.

Okay, because if he's listening, he might want to chime in with his location just so he doesn't feel left out, but he has assured me that he is a conservative

Bible -believing Anglican, and I believe that he is somehow connected with Cana or something like that.

Okay. But if you're listening, Bishop Sloan, you could send us your contact information as well.

Well, as I said earlier, we have a tradition here. Whenever we have a first -time guest on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, oh, wait a minute, let me give your website because I think

I forgot to mention it. GoodShepherdAnglican .net

GoodShepherdAnglican .net is the website for Good Shepherd Anglican Church of Harrisburg, and hopefully

I'll remember to repeat that later on in the program as well. Now, as I was saying, please, as we have our custom here, give us a summary of your salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and what kind of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord brought about in your life and used to save you.

Sure. Well, I was born into a nominally Christian family like most people in the 1980s, that we were of a

Methodist extraction. Both sides of the family came from Methodist backgrounds.

I went to a Methodist preschool. I think partly because of that. There at the

Methodist preschool, my mother claims I had a call to the ministry. I don't recall that, but she swears up and down that I was about five years old when

I felt called to the ministry. But it wasn't until I was nine when

I came to understand that I was a sinner and that I needed a Savior.

And that was through a vacation Bible school at, of all places, an independent

Fundamentalist Baptist church. So I came to know the Lord personally through that ministry.

And I kind of joke now that it kind of went like it would in an independent

Fundamentalist Baptist church where they told me I was a sinner going to hell and I didn't want to go to hell.

And so I repented right quick. But I'm very thankful for that experience nonetheless.

Not long after that, my family started attending that church. We found it to be a little too legalistic for us and ended up leaving.

And I started attending a denominational church. Rev. McCall, are you still there?

I am. Okay, for some reason you're breaking up all of a sudden. Are you there?

Can you hear me? Yeah, but you keep cutting out. I don't know if we have to go to another phone line or something.

You, out of the blue, just started to cut out. Yes, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, good, good.

So where was I? You were saying that you felt the, your family felt the legalism of the specific or particular congregation of Fundamentalist Baptists.

The legalism was too much for you to swallow, so you ventured on.

And I don't remember hearing exactly where you wound up after that. Right. We were at a non -denominational

Bible church for a little bit, which was essentially a Baptist church. We joke about how it was a

Baptist church with drums. The youth minister there was a little bit more on the

Reformed end, even though he was a dispensationalist. So that was my introduction into Reformed theology.

And then in college, I went to the Lancaster Bible College over in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and was further introduced to Reformed theology by some of the professors there, and also

All Saints Presbyterian Church, which is a CREC parish over in Lancaster.

From there, I went to seminary, and it was in seminary where I became an Anglican and joined the

Reformed Episcopal Church, and was ordained not long after that.

And am I correct in saying that now there is some kind of connection officially with the

REC, or Reformed Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church of North America?

That's a wonderful question, and one that's very difficult to answer. What we would say is that we're a sub -jurisdiction in the

Anglican Church of North America. And so what that essentially means is that we have our own bishops, our own college of bishops, our own presiding bishop, our own canons and bylaws and constitution, but all of that is under Archbishop Foley Beach and the

ACNA College of Bishops. So we are a part of the ACNA, but we still maintain some of our uniqueness in the midst of all of that.

Great. And let me, right off the bat, ask you probably the most frequently asked question

I get from listeners who have been noticing that I have been airing a lot of interviews lately, conducting a lot of interviews lately and airing them, with conservative,

Bible -believing, confessional and Reformed Episcopalians and Anglicans. The question is, what's the difference between an

Episcopalian and an Anglican? And I typically will say, well,

Episcopalian is a description of church government, and Anglican would be a historic term that connects them with the

Church of England, although many of the smaller confessional

Reformed denominations that have emerged no longer have an official tie with the

Church of England. They're just referring to a historical connection with Thomas Cranmer, the great hero of the

Christian faith, responsible for the 39 Articles of Religion and the

Book of Common Prayer and so on. But if you could, in your own words, answer that frequently asked question for my listeners.

Well, sure. And that also is kind of a complicated question, because there are some jurisdictions within the

Anglican Church of North America that still do have ties to Canterbury through the

African partnerships. So that's not a cut -and -dry sort of answer.

That's not a cut -and -dry sort of question. It's not black and white. Anglicanism is...that's

what we're going to talk about today, how Anglicanism is confused. But usually, when people ask me what church

I'm with, I start with Reformed Episcopal, and then people will say, what's that? I'll explain that I'm an

Anglican, and then they'll say, what's that? And then I have to go back and explain the history of Anglicanism.

Of course, I get it all the time. But we would explain that the

Episcopal Church was founded in the late 1700s after the Revolutionary War, and all of the bishops and priests went back...

the Loyalist bishops and priests went back to England, so they needed to figure out what they were going to do here as a church.

And of course, they sent bishops...they

sent priests to England to be consecrated. They weren't able to be consecrated there due to the fact that they had to swear allegiance to the king.

And so they found that they could be consecrated by non -juring bishops in Scotland who didn't require that swearing of allegiance to the king.

So the bishop went to Scotland, was consecrated, and then returned here to the

United States to bring with him the apostolic succession and the ordination and get the church up and going apart from the

Church of England. So the Episcopal Church has always been in communion with the

Church of England. And then what happened in 2009 with the consecration of V.

Gene Robertson to the episcopate, there was a mass exodus of Episcopalians out of the

Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of North America was formed. Now, can you tell us the circumstances behind that, why it would evoke such a large exodus?

Sure. Bishop Robertson was a partnered homosexual.

And that was, for a lot of Episcopalians, the last straw. As well it should be.

There probably should have been a number of straws before that. Well, and there had been,

I mean, you had these continuing churches forming for years. I mean, the Reformed Episcopal Church was founded in the 1870s in response to the

Oxford Movement. And by the way, I just want to let you know a little bit of interesting trivia that I don't know if I informed you of.

My landlady was raised by a Reformed Episcopal pastor.

Her father was a Reformed Episcopalian. She is currently in the PCA, the

Presbyterian Church in America, and before that a member of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church where her husband pastored for many, many years. Do you remember her father's name?

Yes, she is actually a direct descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach, B -A -C -H.

So that is her maiden name. Okay, I'm not familiar with him. I didn't know if maybe his name had come up before, but yeah.

Well, that's a neat connection. I'd like to meet her sometime. Yeah, great. So yeah, we were founded in the 1870s by Bishop David Cummins in response to Anglo -Catholicism and the

Oxford Movement. We were opposed to that. And so then there were other breakaway groups.

I wish I could go into that, but there are so many. I know you spoke with my friend,

Archbishop Robinson, a couple of weeks ago from the United Episcopal Church.

Yeah, I look forward to having him back. He is a brilliant guest, and I really enjoyed interviewing him and look forward to many more interviews with him.

Yes, I hold him in high regard. He's a good man. He is a part of one of those breakaway groups that happened in the 1950s and 1960s in response to Bishop Pike and his liberalism.

So there have been breakaway groups. In the early 2000s, that's when we started what was called

Anglican Realignment. And so a lot of those groups got together and talked.

For a while, I think we still do, we had a good working relationship with the Anglican Province of America.

There was some pulpit exchange between the REC and the

APA, but the APA did not want to go into the Anglican Church of North America because, unfortunately, the

Anglican Church of North America does ordain women, and the APA is opposed to that.

Like us, the REC is also opposed to it, but we did decide to go into relationship with the

ACNA, knowing that there were also bishops in agreement with us on that issue.

Yes, I happen to agree with that wholeheartedly, and it boggles my mind that those that believe in the inerrancy of Scripture could possibly justify the ordination of women, but I do have friends who are in denominations that are still

Bible -believing and conservative and yet ordain women, so I don't want to broad -brush those folks with liberalism.

They have completely different reasons than the liberals and apostates do for ordaining women.

So even though I disagree with it, I respond completely differently to those that are coming out of perhaps a

Wesleyan holiness background or some kind of a

Pentecostal background, that even though I disagree with those theological perspectives, there is not a leftist reason for them ordaining women.

Right, yeah, and that would be the influence. Some of the influence in the

ACNA in terms of ordaining women, that those people are coming from a charismatic perspective, which is something we're going to talk about in a bit, but...

Greg, can't... Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Yeah, so the APA didn't join with the

ACNA. Like I said, we still have good relationships with them, but the

ACNA is... So they're a part of what's called the

Continuing Church. So there are various different groups who have come together and formed kind of an alternative to the

ACNA called the Continuing Church, but like everything, the

Continuing Church has their problems, too. We all have issues that we have to work through as part of this

Anglican realignment process. Great.

Well, now let us dive into this very controversial theme, the

Anglican identity crisis. And if you could restate those types of churches that you believe fall under the umbrella of the main term or the primary term,

Anglican. Yeah, so there's what's called three streams theology. I actually do not hold to it.

And it's this idea that there are three streams within the Anglican Church. There's the

Catholic stream, the Reformed stream, and the charismatic stream.

And so what you have in the ACNA is kind of a hodgepodge of these different groups of people.

You have representatives of the Anglo -Catholics, would be the

Diocese of Fort Worth under Bishop Jack Eicher. Bishop Jack Eicher was a...

the fight against women's rights. By the way, you're breaking up again, Reverend McCall. I'm not sure what you were doing differently a moment ago, but you're starting to break up again.

It's just my house. It's kind of a dead zone. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can. Okay, good.

So you have those Anglo -Catholic groups. You also have the more Anglo -Reformed groups, which

I would put the REC probably in the more Anglo -Reformed camp.

But also, we'll get to this, but I... You broke up again.

I'm sorry you broke up again. No, no, it's fine. I said I often joke about how calling

Anglo -Reformed folks Anglo -Reformed is that it's redundant, because Anglic should be

Reformed. Right. Well, that's always music to my ears. So then you have the

Anglo -Charismatic group, and with them, there was a real...

In the 70s, there was the whole Charismatic revival movement in a lot of churches, but in the

Episcopal Church, one, and so a lot of those folks are in there, too. Now, the question is, are

Anglo -Catholics and Anglo -Charismatics Anglican?

And that's where things get a little tricky, because it all comes back to our identity.

And one of the things you'll observe in Anglo -Charismatic churches, for example, is that some of them aren't even using the prayer book anymore.

There are no... There are no what? See, you broke up there.

They're not using the prayer book anymore, and then you said there are no, and you broke up. Right. So they're vestments.

They don't use vestments. They don't use the liturgy. They're kind of doing things their own free way.

So you have that in the Anglican Church of North America, and so you have to ask yourself, is that actually

Anglican? Are these things, the prayer book and the trappings, part of our identity, or aren't they?

And so that creates part of the problem. Now, let me ask you a question, and forgive me if this comes across in an insulting way, and I don't mean it to be, towards the

Reformed Episcopal Church, but I have noticed in my communications with the

REC over the years that there seems to be an influx, a growing number of Oxford movement

Anglo -Catholics being admitted into the ministry, into the ordained pastorate in the

Reformed Episcopal Church, and I had a very unpleasant encounter back, it was either the early 2000s or the 1990s.

One of the reasons I have a deep interest in all things

Anglican and Episcopalian is that my father's side of the family, even though I was raised

Roman Catholic before my rebirth in Christ and came to believe in the true gospel, which caused me to abandon

Roman Catholicism, my father's side of the family has always been predominantly

Episcopalian and Anglican, and my uncle, one of my uncles in the Washington State area, he is now deceased, but he was hinting to me that he was very likely going to leave the

Episcopal Church over its leftist ideas and apostasy, and he was flirting with the idea of becoming a

Roman Catholic, which unfortunately he actually eventually did. And before he converted to Catholicism, I was calling

Reformed Episcopal Churches to see how close any of them might be to where my uncle lived in Washington State, and an

RAC pastor actually said to me that I was a moron for being concerned about my uncle's conversion to Roman Catholicism and that he had more in common with his

Roman Catholic brothers than idiots like me who are Reformed Baptists.

I was taken aback by that, I mean, first of all, for any pastor to respond to somebody with that kind of language is amazing, but it provoked in me further investigation, and upon speaking with genuinely

Reformed and Protestant members of the REC, they have shared with me that that is a sad phenomenon of the growing numbers of Anglo -Catholic men in the ministry and in the priesthood in the

REC. So if you could just comment on what I said, and again I hope I did not insult you in any way. Oh no, not at all.

We get this quite frequently, and I think part of this goes back to our history, and part of it goes towards this whole

Anglican realignment thing. I'll address the Anglican realignment issue first.

The first thing is that when the Episcopal Church started their downward spiral, there were priests who needed somewhere to go, and some of those priests were going to be

Anglo -Catholic, and they ended up coming into the REC because the

REC was conservative and Orthodox. And so they were transferred in, their ordinations were transferred in.

They may have taken parishes and the like, and so that's just a part of that Anglican realignment for the last 15 years.

But in terms of our history, there was a period probably from the 1950s to the 1960s.

I'm not an expert on our history, but it does fascinate me. But this time period, there was some issue of our own identity as Reformed Episcopalians.

I mean, if you look at the old RE prayer book, there's not really much in it that could be recognizable as Anglican.

And there was the joke that Reformed Episcopalians at one time were just Presbyterians with a prayer book.

And so our identity was very Reformed, but there was also a time period, for example, where one of our bishops was the president of Moody Bible Institute.

So there was some dispensationalism coming into the church as well. In the 1990s, our former presiding bishop,

Leonard Riches, decided that we needed to figure out who we were.

Are we a Presbyterian church with a prayer book, or are we an Anglican church? In fact,

I'm going to have you pick up right at that point when we return from our very first station break. If anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

If you have a question for Pastor Ricky McCall, that's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Armsen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Reverend Ricky McCarl, hospice chaplain and vicar of Good Shepherd Anglican Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And we are addressing the Anglican identity crisis. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarmsen at gmail .com

chrisarmsen at gmail .com That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Before the break,

Reverend McCarl, you may recall you were just about to lay out something of historic significance in the

Reformed Episcopal Church, and that had to do with being more clear about your identity, whether you were

Presbyterian or Anglican, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, so Bishop Riches wanted to make sure our identity was clear, so things were reintroduced, such as the use of Cassock and surplus, opposed to the

Geneva gown, which was used prior to that, and other things like that, candles on the altar.

Those seem like small things, but to Anglicans, those are kind of a big deal, because how much you use those liturgical trappings communicates a lot about where your churchmanship is.

That was quite controversial back then. I know there were some people who were quite irritated about those changes, and in some churches there still are some holdbacks.

There's what's called the Looney -Hoffman Fund. That's Looney -Hoffman

Fund, and the Looney -Hoffman Fund will help churches get their financial support, and one of the requirements is that the priest has to wear a

Geneva gown, and other things associated with just the trappings of the church.

And so that's still kind of, in some areas, an issue. But that,

I think, that tendency to go a little bit higher in liturgy did attract some more

Anglo -Catholic -type people. The problem, though, is that in order to be ordained in the

REC, you have to affirm the 39 Articles and the Declaration of Principles, which are very evangelical

Anglican documents. In fact, that very rude

REC priest that I told you about moments ago, who said that I was a moron for being concerned over my uncle converting to Roman Catholicism, I said to him, you know,

I'm more of an Anglican than you are, because I actually believe in the majority of the 39

Articles. You cannot, with your mindset on Roman Catholicism, truly believe in those

Articles, because they're clearly Protestant. And he said to me, and I thank

God, that that embarrassing relic is really winding up on the dustbin of history.

And this was an REC -ordained priest, and we'll get to that in a moment, because we do have a listener who has a question about the term priest.

So this man either was dishonest when he was ordained, by saying that he affirmed the 39

Articles, or he had abandoned them. Right. Yeah, and I actually had an interesting encounter through my hospice ministry a couple of years ago.

I was over at Corrieville Presbyterian Home. As you know, as a Presbyterian, I think they're associated with the

PCA, if I'm not mistaken. And I was chatting with the chaplain, and he asked me what church

I was with. You know, I said earlier how I get that question a lot, and everybody's like, what's a

Reformed Episcopalian? So I just said I was Episcopalian. And he said, well,

I really love the 39 Articles, and I wish that you all would too.

And I said, actually, I'm a

Reformed Episcopalian. And lo and behold, either he or his father went to RES Seminary, so he knew all about the

Reformed Episcopal Church, and we had a good time of fellowship. But the 39

Articles are not a historical document. They're a formulary.

They're a part of who we are as Anglicans. Now, of course,

Anglo -Catholics are going to root their identity more in the Medieval Church than they are in the

Reformational Church, and that's a different issue. But to say that the 39

Articles are a relic on the trash heap of history is deeply problematic and not the official position of the

Reformed Episcopal Church. In fact, I think that would be enough to have him brought up on charges in an ecclesiastical court.

I just wish I could remember his name in his church right now. It was so long ago.

Yes. So, yeah, you said we had a question? Oh, yes. We have

John in Bangor, Maine, who says, The more I read about the

Reformed Anglican movement, the more pleased I am with it. But I am somewhat dismayed about some of the trappings that seems to be clung to by some, not all,

Reformed Anglicans, such as the term priesthood, which I understand the excuse is that it is an abbreviation of presbytos, but I don't believe that that's an illegitimate excuse because the priesthood has a certain and specific definition to it, and the only priesthood that we have in the

New Testament is the priesthood of all believers. And also, for the title father, which the

New Testament clearly forbids when it comes to spiritual leaders. Can you please respond to these criticisms?

Yes, I've heard them a lot. They're pretty typical, coming from Reformed friends.

Especially from a former Roman Catholic like me, because to tell you the truth, it concerns me as well.

Yes. So, in the Reformed Episcopal Church, it's always been customary to refer to clergymen as deacons or presbyters, using the more

Greek term, opposed to priest.

However, that's why we use the term priest, because it's the

English derivative of the term presbyter. I do understand his concern, but we do not view the priesthood as a sacerdotal priesthood.

So, I'm not offering any sacrifices on the altar. That's ultimately the issue that I think comes up with former

Roman Catholics and our Reformed friends, is that the term priest has sacerdotal connotations to it.

And that's not what I'm doing at the altar, or at the table. So, we don't have as much of an issue with that as others would, because we understand, rightly, that we're not offering, again, the body of Christ, the blood of Christ.

That's not what's taking place. In terms of the other thing, the term father,

Archbishop Robinson's actually got a really interesting perspective on this, because it's my understanding that that's really an

American phenomenon. That's what I've heard, actually, that in Britain, in the

UK, it's really hardly ever, if ever, used. It's vicar and so on, but never father.

Even among Anglo -Catholics, it's my understanding that they don't use the term father. Outside of the

United States, you mean? Right. In the United Kingdom, the Anglo -Catholics wouldn't use the term father.

Now, of course, in my parish, that term was used,

I think in part because the last vicar used that term. My preference is actually the

Reverend McCarl, not necessarily father. I also have always been quite fond of the term pastor, just because of the connotations of what that word means.

It's not atypical to hear an Anglican minister being referred to as father, but that really is an

American thing. Yes, as I said, I have heard that from another

Reformed Anglican pastor, which was actually quite a surprise to me.

He also told me something that Bishop Robinson confirmed, was that when people express concern or dismay or even disgust over Anglicans or Episcopalians wearing clerical collars, the concept that was totally new to me was that, in irony, the

Roman Catholic priesthood adopted the collar to imitate

Presbyterians, to be more assimilated amongst the clergy, and that it doesn't have

Roman Catholic origins. Yeah, I actually prefer the

Anglican what we would call dog collar, which goes around the neck. It's a more

Protestant look. And I have a friend who's a Presbyterian minister, and he always jokes that the reason why that's a

Protestant collar is because you can't put it on without a wife. It buttons in the back.

That's excellent. But yeah, that is actually my preferred, because,

I mean, we're getting into some silly minutiae here, but the

Roman clergy shirts are cheaper, but the connotation that comes with the

Roman shirts has not always been wonderful. So I actually prefer the more

Anglican, I should say the more Presbyterian look with the dog collar around the neck.

Yeah, and it's interesting that outside of mainline Presbyterianism, most of the conservative

Bible -believing Presbyterian denominations, with some exception, their pastorates very rarely wear collars at all.

They just wear a suit and tie like your average person in the congregation. But that's today, of course.

And along those lines, you would be hard -pressed to find the Reverend John Stott in a clerical collar.

I think there is one or two pictures of him floating around in one, but he usually wore a tie and dress shirt.

Now, of course, now he's wearing a robe of righteousness and glory with Christ. Indeed. Indeed, yes.

But we have to go to our midway break right now. This is the longer -than -normal break that we have because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of our show because they need to fulfill

FCC requirements to localize their programming, including Iron Trip and Zion, to Lake City, Florida.

And they do so by airing their own public service announcements and other local announcements during the middle of our show.

While they do that, we air our globally heard commercials. So please use this time wisely.

Write down as much of the information as you can for as many of the advertisers you hear as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

That way, you'll further ensure that our advertisers will continue to renew their advertising contracts.

That will further ensure that we remain on the air because we depend on our advertisers to exist.

We could not exist without the generosity of our advertisers and our just average run -of -the -mill folks out there who are generous enough and who love this program enough to donate to us.

And by the way, I ask of your forgiveness for referring to you as run -of -the -mill. I just mean those that are outside of corporate sponsorship or church sponsors.

But I just thank God for all of our supporters, whether they are advertisers or independent donors.

So please respond to our advertisers as often as you can. And also, use this time to write down questions for Reverend Ricky McCall on the

Anglican identity crisis and send them to ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages with more of Reverend Ricky McCall. Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, announcing a new website with an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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Thank you. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

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And I thank God from the very depths of my heart, I truly thank God for all of you who have been generously supporting this program, some of you every single month, and I just can't even describe in the

English language how thankful and grateful I am to God for you. Also, if you are not a member of a local

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Reverend Ricky McCall, the vicar of Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

We are discussing the Anglican Church Identity Crisis, and if you'd like to join us on the air, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com

And, Reverend McCall, before we have you continue where you left off, we do have a question from the aforementioned

David Waterman, the field associate for Central Pennsylvania CBMC, which is the

Christian Businessmen's Connection. For those of you who just tuned us in, David Waterman is the one who strongly recommended that I invite

Reverend McCall onto this program for an interview. And Dave says,

Great interview. Just need an explanation on what is slash was the

Oxford Movement, and was it Thomas Cranmer who actually formed the

Anglican Church? And greetings to Brother Ricky. Appreciate the ministry of Good Shepherd Anglican.

Well, let me start with the first one, because the second question in regards to Archbishop Cranmer, I love that question.

I'm actually just going through a new members' class right now, and I asked my new members if they could tell me who founded the

Anglican Church. And several of them said King Henry VIII. And I love when people give me that answer because it's completely wrong.

And we had a little bit of fun with that. But one of the accusations made against the

Anglican Church is that we were founded because the king wanted a divorce. That's just historically inaccurate.

It is the argument of Anglicans that Anglicanism has existed in continuity with the ancient church in England since the 1st or 2nd century, so very early on.

There's all sorts of myths and legends surrounding that about Joseph of Arimathea and the

Holy Grail, and all of that fun legend, but there's nothing to support that historically.

Instead, we believe that Christianity was brought to England by traitors,

Roman soldiers, and the like. So Christianity was established in England very early on, and the

Anglican Church is a reformed church, not a new church, but a church that already existed having been reformed.

So we look to that continuity with the ancient English church, and we hold on to that.

And so when people ask, when was the Church of England established, I would say in the 1st or 2nd century.

Now, Cranmer, of course, reforms the church, and I do want to address the divorce issue.

Understand that King Henry VIII, though quite the tyrant and not really a reformed

Christian, wanted a divorce because he felt that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was invalid, and he had biblical grounds for that, but the

Pope would not grant it because of her relationship to the Holy Roman Emperor.

And so Henry then separates himself from Rome, and Cranmer sees this as an opportunity to reform the church, and the church becomes even more reformed under the reign of Edward, King Henry's son, who reigned a very short and brief period, and then even more so under Elizabeth I, his daughter.

The Oxford Movement began in the mid -1800s in response to, ironically, some liberalism in the church.

The Reverend John Keble preached a sermon on the Great Apostasy, which kicked off the

Oxford Movement, which was an attempt to return the Church of England back to a more

Catholic, capital -C Catholic, church.

So they were reintroducing the ceremonial aspects of the Catholic Church, the incense, the bells being rung during the communion service, referring to the communion service as the

Mass, prayers to the saints, purgatory, and all of those things.

And so there was a real... There was a real response to this by evangelical

Anglicans and high churchmen in that those things they did not want.

And so it did, in some ways, restart a revival in the Church.

However, I think it has also led to some of those errors in the Church. So the

Anglo -Catholics would say that the Thirty -Nine Articles, for example, are historical documents.

That's how they kind of get around the articles that specifically prohibit those

Catholic elements. I should say Roman Catholic elements. And so they would call it a historical document.

Well, the Latitudinarians, the liberal churchmen, latch onto that and use that to this day to bring in all of their heresy and false teaching, stating that the formularies are just historical documents.

And in some cases, even Scripture is just a historical document where they're more free to come up with their own ideas.

And just to clarify for our audience who may hear these other terms come up, either today or in other programs about Anglicanism, aren't the

Anglo -Catholics not only known as being a part of the Oxford Movement, but also they're known as Tractarians and Puseites?

Well, yes, the Puseites are definitely a strain of Anglo -Catholics.

I don't know that I would call everyone a follower of him. The Tractarians, they're called the

Tractarians because of the Tracts for our times, which the Oxford Movement leaders wrote, specifically

John Newman, who went on to be a cardinal in the

Roman Catholic Church, very unfortunate, and is now considered a saint in the

Roman Church, no longer an Anglican. So those articles, or those

Tracts, were written by those gentlemen, and that's where they got the term Tractarians.

I believe it's Tract 90 that's the most offensive in how he argues some of the more

Roman Catholic elements into the Thirty -Nine Articles. And that's an important point, because the

Tracts are essentially trying to shape the Thirty -Nine Articles in such a way that they fit into a more

Roman Catholic understanding. Well, Dave Waterman, thank you so much for the excellent question, and please continue listening to the program, and continue spreading the word about it in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and beyond.

Your friendship is treasured greatly, my dear brother. Well, if you could now pick up where you left off,

Reverend McCall, about the Anglican identity crisis, and really why this is such a very important thing, because at times, the very heart of the

Gospel of Jesus Christ itself is at stake here. Yeah. Well, one of the big issues we're dealing with now in the

ACNA is the issue of critical race theory. And I know that there are other denominations dealing with this, too.

Our brothers in the Southern Baptist Convention have been dealing with it. I think there's been some elements of it in the

PCA as well. And a lot of this is being pushed by certain dioceses that would consider themselves within that charismatic stream of Anglicanism.

And really and truly, this is going to get me into a lot of trouble, but I really struggle with understanding how the charismatic movement and Anglicanism are related.

I think I said somewhat recently in this interview that some of those charismatic churches don't even use the prayer book.

I think the prayer book's pretty essential to Anglican identity, because whereas Presbyterians would get their doctrine from the

Westminster Confession, Anglicans get their doctrine from the Thirty -Nine Articles and other places, including the prayer book.

So we look to the prayer book to help guide our theological thought. And so in addition to the

Ordinal in 1662 and the Book of Homilies.

And so disengaging from those formularies in such a way that charismatic

Anglicans have concerns me because they're disengaging themselves from their identity.

And my concern is that their identity is going to be lost. And so what you might have is a charismatic church with a liturgy instead of an

Anglican church. And as a result of all of this, this disengagement from the prayer book and the

Thirty -Nine Articles and the other formularies, a lot of things have creeped into the church that aren't

Anglican, such as the Critical Race Theory, which is the big thing we're dealing with now, but also women's ordination.

A lot of those charismatic Anglicans are bringing women's ordination into the church.

Just recently, the Committee on Holy Orders, well, it was a couple years ago, released a statement in which they said that women's ordination is an innovation.

It has no basis in Holy Scripture or church order or church tradition.

It's an innovation. And that innovation is brought in by those charismatic

Christians coming into the Anglican tradition. And I think that creates a lot of problems across the theological landscape, both for Anglicans in a more

Reformed direction, but also the Anglo -Catholics. And so what we have found is that Anglo -Catholics and Anglo -Reformed folks have a lot of things in common.

We're fighting a lot of the same battles. And so some of us have really been able to put aside some of those really significant differences to fight these significant battles.

I don't know what that means for us long -term, but it has been quite interesting.

A number of Anglo -Catholics have just left and gone to Rome and then found that they've had significant problems there.

So the grass isn't always greener, as it were. But we really are struggling to figure out who we are as a province.

And I personally believe that if we're going to figure out who we are, it's going to have to revolve around the formularies and that historical

Reformed Anglicanism that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer gave us.

Great. And by the way, let me ask you another question that was stated or involved something that was stated to me by a fellow

Reformed Anglican. And I was curious what your take on it was.

He told me that he is fairly certain that the reason why most

Anglo -Catholic bishops do not fully swim all the way through the

Tiber River back to Rome is that in doing so, they would lose their status as bishops and become lowly priests in the

Roman Catholic Church, were they to convert. He is convinced otherwise these

Anglo -Catholic bishops would convert and fully bring their parishes into the subjection of the

Pope of Rome. Now, what is your reaction to that? Well, I can't speak for those bishops because I'm not a bishop and I don't know their thought thinking on that.

But I would think, too, there are some Anglo -Catholics who do not view the

Pope as the vicar of Christ. They're viewing kind of a

Catholicism before all of that. I actually find that a lot of Anglicans are more interested in the

Eastern Church than they are the Roman Church, for whatever reason. I can't really put my finger on that.

That's interesting that you say that. As I brought up, I think, with Bishop Robinson, my grandmother's parish priest when she was still living in Amityville, Long Island, the parish priest there in a very high church,

Anglo -Catholic church. And I don't mean to make high church and Anglo -Catholic synonyms because I know that there are high church

Protestants in the Anglican Church. But he has dabbled with the idea of converting to Eastern Orthodoxy because of the leftist apostasy in the

Episcopal Church. Yeah, I know a lot of clergy have gone into the

Western Right Orthodox Church. There was Bishop Sam Seamans down south who took his entire parish into,

I believe, the Western Right Orthodox Church. So I know there have been a lot of people who have gone to Rome, but there have been a lot who have also gone to the

East. And I think part of that is because as Anglicans, we don't see the

Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ, as the

Bishop of the whole Church. And so I think there might be elements of that in that transition.

I know for me, being an Augustinian, I would never do well in a

Western Right Orthodox Church. And I've always appreciated the part in the 39 articles that says that the

Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm of England. So I won't be leaving

Anglicanism anytime soon for either of those traditions. And one of the specific reasons why what you just said is important for the listener who is unaware, but one of the most primary conflicts of Augustine's day was with Pelagius, who denied

Original Sin. And Eastern Orthodoxy also, to this day, denies

Original Sin. Yeah. And you will run across Anglicans sometimes who are struggling with that.

And it's only a matter of time until they cross over into Eastern Orthodoxy.

But I mean, I just preach not recently. We're preaching through Romans right now at our parish, and Paul's abundantly clear in Romans of our sin problem.

And that it's congenital. So I don't really know how they get around that.

There also isn't a real strong sense of academic rigor in Eastern Orthodoxy.

That's probably going to get me into trouble. I have a friend, well, my friend who made the joke about the dog collar jokes that whenever you meet an

Eastern Orthodox convert, it's only a matter of time until you find out what charismatic church they've come from.

I have several friends from college who were in charismatic churches and are now

Eastern Orthodox. I think that might be part of the appeal, too. There's an academic rigor with Anglicanism, and with Western Christianity in general, that Eastern Christianity doesn't have.

There's more of an emphasis upon experience, and so that appeals to those charismatics in the

Anglican Church who probably aren't going to enjoy the academic rigor as much of the

Western tradition. Now, let me also give a little caveat here.

Although I am a strict cessationist regarding the sign gifts,

I am a confessional Reformed Baptist. I do not approve of charismatic or uniquely

Pentecostal phenomena, and having said that, I have cherished friendships with brothers and sisters in Christ whom

I also highly value as brothers and sisters and friends who have contributed greatly to my own life and walk with Christ.

Sometimes it's because their lives have demonstrated such godliness and holiness that it puts mine to shame, and so therefore

I have learned a great deal in that realm from these charismatic and Pentecostal friends.

So I just wanted to make sure that my listeners aren't getting the vibe that I am some kind of vehement anti -charismatic to an extreme, which

I am not. But I do, as I just mentioned,

I do reject the modern sign gifts, and I do reject the idea of new extra -biblical revelation, and so on.

But what would be the reason why you reject the concept of the charismatic movement being a stream of authentic Anglicanism?

Well first, I just wanted to say thanks for mentioning that other piece, because I too have great friendships with charismatic

Christians. My point here is just that I don't think that it's compatible with Anglicanism.

And I guess my reason for that, and I'm looking up the article now, is the

Thirty -Nine Articles. Oh yes, about the foreign tongues.

Yes. Now that article is specifically referring to Latin in the

Church, Anglicans preach in English. I remember my first Sunday at Good Shepherd, we went from a

Lutheran church, and I was told that the Lutheran pastor was away doing a German service in Philadelphia.

Well the following Sunday, she came and she met me, and she said, I was doing a German service, and I said,

Oh, haha, I was doing an English service. Just to kind of highlight the differences between us.

Article 24 says, Speaking in the congregation in such a tongue as the people understand it.

It says, It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of the primitive

Church to have public prayer in the Church or to minister the sacraments in a tongue that is not understanded of the people.

And that at the time was referring to Latin rather than the gift of so -called tongues today. Exactly.

But I would argue that it has direct implications on that issue.

And that's one of the reasons I would reject it. Also, there's no basis for it in the patristics or in the reformers.

We're dealing specifically with something that has come about in the last 200 years.

So, I just don't see how it's compatible with Anglicanism.

Again, I'm not going to find fault with Christians who are charismatic. I just am emphasizing that in terms of Anglicanism, it doesn't fit.

We do have Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, who has a question.

He says, Forgive me if I have been misunderstanding some of the things said by your guest, but I was just wondering if he is taking the differences between Reformed Anglicanism and the

Anglo -Catholic tradition seriously enough. I happen to think that Roman Catholicism, of which

Anglo -Catholicism is an imitation, is presenting a false gospel and is idolatrous in its practice, and I know that some

Anglo -Catholics even pray to saints. Do you take this division as seriously as I and many other

Reformed brothers and sisters do? In terms of Catholicism, well, let me back up a little.

There are times in which Reformed Christians will make the accusation that the

Catholic Church is not a church, therefore excommunicating all

Roman Catholics. Interestingly, the Thirty -Nine Articles consider the

Roman Church to be a church, but a church in error. So, I don't know that I would phrase it the way that this gentleman did.

I'm not downplaying the differences, I just think that there are sometimes people who take the differences to an extreme.

I don't believe that the Roman Catholic Church, I should say, I don't believe that Roman Catholics aren't saved.

There are many godly Roman Catholics. Yes, I would agree that there are many godly

Roman Catholics who I will see in Heaven, but they are Roman Catholic in name only, because I have a hard time harmonizing what

Paul said about the Judaizers, the Apostle Paul, obviously, what he said about the

Judaizers having no gospel at all, and I think that a Roman Catholic has a hard time making the case that the sin or the apostasy of the

Judaizers is less, or should I say, more serious than the

Roman Catholic official dogma on justification, and clearly adding works as a cooperative cause for one to be made right with God.

How do you fit those two things together? And, of course, there are many

Roman Catholics who, a minority for certain, but there are many that reject

Rome's definition of the gospel as defined by the Council of Trent, which is still dogma, who will be in Heaven, but at the same time, how do you reconcile

Paul's clear condemnation and even anathematizing of the

Judaizers while having a somewhat extended open hand of fellowship in some regard to Roman Catholics?

Yeah, I think it comes down to the fact that there are probably a number of Roman Catholics who love

Jesus, believe in Jesus, and are trusting in his finished work on the cross, but don't know what their church teaches.

Yeah, that's why I actually said that many who are in that category that you just described will be in Heaven.

I'm talking about a Roman Catholic who celebrates and declares as still valid the definition of the gospel by the

Council of Trent. Yeah, I think we would have problems with that kind of Catholic, because they're rejecting clearly the gospel.

And I guess my point is that we can't take every Roman Catholic in the same way.

We have to really figure out what it is they believe. I know a number of Roman Catholics who would be better suited in Anglican churches, but they're

Roman Catholics because that's what they grew up believing. That's where they grew up, going to church.

That's what they're comfortable with. But they do not actually espouse the teachings of the Roman Church.

But in terms of Anglo -Catholicism, again, we can't treat

Anglo -Catholicism as a monolithic movement. There are a variety of kinds of Anglo -Catholics.

I mean, you'll have Preble Catholics who are on the edge of the high churchmen tradition, just moving from the high church tradition into the

Anglo -Catholic tradition. They're probably more likely to affirm the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

And then on the other extreme, you have Anglo -Papalists who believe in the supremacy of the

Pope, who reject the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and who have a mechanical view of the sacraments.

I personally, as an Anglican, don't really have much to do with them.

Because they see me as a heretic. These folks might even be saying the

Latin Mass in their churches. Wow. That's an extreme.

That's more Roman than the official Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century. Yes. So that's an extreme, out in left field, that I don't really have anything to do with.

So I don't think it's accurate that I'm not taking seriously the differences between the

Reformed position and the Anglo -Catholic position, in that it's really kind of hard to nail down what an

Anglo -Catholic position is. And before we go to the final break, I'll actually read you a question, and you can answer when we return from our final break, which, by the way, is much shorter than the other two, so rest assured we won't be gone too long.

But we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, How corrupted is the

Church of England outside of the United States in regards to leftist apostasy?

I know that here in America, obviously, the vast majority of the official mainline

Episcopal Church has collapsed to leftist apostasy with some exceptions, but how much of this is true outside of the

United States? We'll have you answer that when we return from our final break. If anybody wants to join us with your own question, please do so by sending in your question immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

As always, please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Reverend Ricky McCall after these messages. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our Sovereign Lord God, Savior and King Jesus Christ today and always

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Susan Margaret from Dauphin County, Pennsylvania wanted to know if the Church of England is just as apostate as the majority of Episcopalianism in the

United States Yes In fact, I would actually argue that they're together working towards undermining the gospel with the

Episcopal Church I think you all remember Bishop Michael Curry presiding bishop of the

Episcopal Church spoke at the royal wedding of the

Duke and Duchess of Sussex That people thought he did a wonderful job, he preached well,

I watched it and I was mortified that the bishop who is suing my brethren for their church properties has the audacity to stand up there and preach about love and then there's the

Archbishop of Canterbury standing right next to him The Church of England is a national church and it has gone the way of its culture and has become very secular we're constantly hearing stories about the antics of the bishops they have ordained a number of women or consecrated a number of women to the office of bishop and things from reading the

Koran at Epiphany to amusement park rides in the cathedral just craziness craziness craziness and they have no part in what we're doing they do consider the

ACNA ministry partners but the ACNA is not considered to be a part of associated with the

Church of England any connection that we would have with the Church of England would be through our African partners who are conservative biblically faithful Christians and who are on our side in the fight against secularism cultural

Marxism and all of those elements that have entered into the church.

We were so excited about Archbishop Justin Welby because he was supposed to be an evangelical and as soon as he's elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury he promptly goes right to the left and has done a great deal of damage to the church

We have an anonymous listener who just has a comment, no question but this anonymous listener says my nephew left the assembly of God and went to strict

Catholic but because of Pope Francis turned to Russian Orthodoxy and has moved to become a rector at a

Russian Orthodox parish the strange things going on in Pentecostal circles caused him to change.

I want you to make sure that you have at least a minute to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we go off the air

Yes, well I think that the big thing for me is that we as Anglicans need to figure out who we are and that needs to be rooted in the formularies, the prayer book, the 39 articles the homily and the ordinal of 1662

If we're not rooted in our tradition my grave concern is that we're going to go the way of every other tradition that's not rooted in their tradition and so I really think that this is an important topic

I know sometimes people think it's silly to talk about vestments and to be focused so much on the 1500s and the 1600s but really and truly that's our foundation and that's where we need to be building on and so I hope that's what we take away from today

Amen, and of course I think the importance of confessionalism is a big part of this. I happen to be a confessional

Reformed Baptist who has much in common with the 39 articles of religion and I think that the abandonment of confessionalism has wrought great destruction and apostasy in the church but I want to make sure our listeners have your website once again, it is

Grace, I'm sorry it is GoodShepherdAnglican .net

GoodShepherdAnglican .net GoodShepherdAnglican .net GoodShepherdAnglican .net