What I've Been Doing

Becoming a Catholic Church: Designing a program for Anglican Catholic catechesis in a Kentucky congregation.

Saint Patrick’s is a recent church plant of the Anglican Mission in America. While some of its fifty members were previously members of the Episcopal Church, many were previously members of evangelical protestant denominations. Kentucky’s Bible Belt culture of anti-Roman Catholic rhetoric and pietistic revivalism presents particular challenges for Anglican formation. Because of their previous church experiences, many are caught between the false dichotomies of scriptural authority against tradition, extemporaneous worship against ritualism, and justification by faith against sacramentalism. After worshipping with the people of Saint Patrick’s Church for several months, I will in cooperation with the rector devise a small group teaching and discussion series that will expound the Anglican witness to the catholicity of the Church. The goal will be to offer Anglican identity as a way of being a “catholic Christian.” The series will focus on catholic ecclesiology, the role of sacred tradition, sacramental theology, and the practice of liturgy. Sessions will connect those layers of the Christian narrative to the congregation’s practices of worship, community life, spiritual formation, and mission. In my reflection, I will analyze participants’ beliefs about the Bible and tradition, the Eucharist, and their worship practices before and after the teaching series.

The bibliography will include but will not be limited to:

Oden, Thomas. The Rebirth of Orthodoxy.
Radner, Ephraim. Hope Among the Fragments: the Broken Church and its Engagement of Scripture.
Ramsey, Michael. The Gospel and the Catholic Church.
_____. The Anglican Spirit.
Reno, R. R. In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity.
Sykes, Stephen, ed. The Study of Anglicanism.
Wilkin, Robert L. Remembering the Christian Past.
Williams, Rowan. Anglican Identities.

Questions, comments and suggestions are quite welcome.

Update: I should clarify that this bibliography is for my own conceptual work and the 7,000 word reflection paper I'll have to write on the experience. It's not the reading list for the little catechetical course, and I'm not sure I'll be asking participants to do any reading. Maybe selections from the Apostolic Fathers, who knows...

FYI: Today's Reading

Eastertide

The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne
The Rule of St. Benedict
The Winter 2007 issue of Christian History & Biography, focusing on Benedict and his monasteries.

Quote of the Day

Eastertide

"Sadly, I find that when I give potential converts the thirty-second Jesus spiel (to save them from hell) and then release myself of any long-term commitment to spiritually disciple them, they become victims of shallow root syndrome. Human life goes on - cursed as it was before, dysfunctional as it was before, painful as it was before - and this simple sentence, minus the transformation that comes from internalizing God's truth over the long haul, sets them up for spiritual failure. Their roots do not go down deep enough; their roots don't know how to find or drink water."

- Sarah Cunningham, Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation (Zondervan, 2006), p.85.

And of course, the real crisis is realized when we find the courage to ask the question, what if the people who are offering the spiel and doing the work of discipleship don't know how to internalize and live the truth over the long haul?