Conservative Anglicans Celebrate Growth; Lament Episcopal Actions

Bp. Minns and Maj. Michael Baumann at his ordination to the diaconate on August 1, 2009. Maj. Baumann is currently serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Drum in NY.

By Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter
Sat, Aug. 01 2009

Conservative Anglican leader the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns has a message for the Archbishop of Canterbury: "We're here; we're doing the work of Gospel; we are within the Anglican mainstream; and we are doing the very things that he declares that we should be about."

But he can't say the same for The Episcopal Church.

Minns celebrated the growth of his breakaway group, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, this week during their third annual council in Herndon, Va.

It's a story of redemption, Minns said Friday. "Birthed because of a disaster, the abandonment of biblical Christianity by the leadership of [The] Episcopal Church," CANA grew by 15 congregations and 30 clergy during the last year, bringing the total to now 85 congregations and 179 clergy in 25 states.

And there is growing interest among Anglicans in the United States to join CANA and other conservative groups comprised of churches that left The Episcopal Church – the U.S. branch of Anglicanism. the rest (picture by Raymond Dague)

Both sides unhappy with archbishop of Canterbury
By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post / August 2, 2009

WASHINGTON - The archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is not a popular man these days. Beset from both sides of his fractured flock, it seems that he can’t do anything right.

His latest proposal to hold together the warring factions, a two-track system that could give his rebellious US Episcopal Church a secondary role in the Communion, has disappointed just about everyone.

“It’s well meaning, but, I think, a futile attempt to paper over two irreconcilable truth claims,’’ said Bishop Martyn Minns, former rector of Truro Church in Fairfax City, Va., who heads a group of congregations that has broken from the Episcopal Church because its members think the church does not follow the Bible closely enough...