The Evangelical Universalist Forum

All Saints Anglican Church (Orthodox)

Practices Church
#1

Thinking of attending the All Saints Anglican church here. The priest said they are Orthodox. By that he means that the church is like the Christian church in the beginning before the Catholic/Orthodox schism or split. So, they’re not your typical Anglican church. They do believe that hell is eternal.

1. We believe our Lord Jesus Christ has given His Church an Order which claims the loyalty of faithful Christians above and beyond any deviation sanctioned by any humanly-invented institution, whether secular or ecclesiastical.

2. We accept the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith and morals.

3. We accept the Apostle’s Creed as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

4. We accept the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church. We affirm the Christian ministerial priesthood as male, and that the churches of the Anglican Communion have no authority to change the historic tradition of the male priesthood. We pray that God grants us the strength and ability to uphold the Church’s Order, both materially and spiritually as concerns the ministerial priesthood of His holy Church. Accordingly, we will reject any and all actions that might signify acceptance of a deviation from the Church’s Order regarding the Christian priesthood.

5. We recognize the seven sacraments of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and the elements ordained by Him, Confirmation, Matrimony, Ordination, Reconciliation of a Penitent, and Unction of the Sick.

6. We believe that, in the Sacrament and mystery of the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ is truly, really and substantially present in the Body and Blood in the outward and visible sign of Bread and Wine.

7. We affirm our Lord’s teaching that the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is in its nature the exclusive, permanent and lifelong union of one man and one woman.

8. We believe all Seven Councils are ecumenical and catholic on the basis of the received Tradition of the ancient Undivided Church of the East and West.

9. We affirm that God, and not man, is the creator of human life. Believing that the unjustified taking of life is sinful, we will promote and uphold the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.

#2

Dear Holly: The Lake of Fire is in the same context as our God the consuming fire…Our Father’s essence is LOVE/FIRE/SPIRIT/LIGHT/CONCILIATION from which all other aspects of His mighty Person flow in great glory. The Lake of Fire has one glorious dimension: theion rooted in Theos.

I do appreciate your reading suggestion. If you get a moment perhaps you can read George MacDonald on line. There are 30 unspoken sermons. The Consuming Fire is highly recommended…

http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons/

#3

The lake of fire is in the context of the heavenly new Jerusalem. This places the lake of fire in an eternal context. It’s not the same context of the earthy Gehenna. Gehenna is outside the old earthly Jerusalem. It’s still there today. Perfect love and perfect justice protect from evil. God’s love and justice are in hell. The Bible speaks of a mercy of kindness and a mercy of severity. Those in hell experience the severity of God. God’s love and compassion is experienced as God torments those in hell. The pain is the kind of pain that is calibrated just right to restrain those in hell from committing evil. Therefore all are reconciled. All are submitted to God. In heaven and earth and those under the earth. I get my theory of hell from the Bible’s teaching that love and justice protect from evil. And as I already stated the Bible teaches that God’s mercy takes on the form of a severe mercy on those in hell. God does indeed show mercy to all. To read more about God’s love and compassion in hell I recommend “Beyond The Cosmos: The Trans Dimensionality of God” by Christian Astrophysicist Hugh Ross:

Beyond the Cosmos brings the reality of God more fully before our minds and helps us love him with our whole being. We cannot love or believe a blank, but many parts of God s revelation of himself and his world remain little more than a blank until qualified and gifted teachers lead us to a greater clarity. Hugh Ross does that, giving the most difficult ideas in Christian teachings gripping new relevance to the realities of time and eternity. --Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy, University of Southern California

HOW CAN IT BE?

How can my choices be totally free if God is in control of all things at all times and knows the end from the beginning?

How can God hear my prayers while listening to billions of others around the world at the exact same time moment?

How can God be all-powerful and all-loving yet allow so much suffering and evil?

These complex paradoxes hold far-reaching implications that have troubled people for centuries. Drawing on biblical teaching and scientific evidence that supports it, Hugh Ross invites us to know and experience God in a way we may never have considered before. As a result, our love and appreciation for God will be dramatically deepened, and the way we relate to him and to others both believers and nonbelievers will be changed forever, for good.

#4

The Orthodox believe that heaven and hell…is being equally, in the presence of God:

The church won’t be considered “Orthodox”, unless the rest of the Orthodox world (i.e. Greek, Russian, etc.) - considers them Orthodox. Nor would the Roman Catholic church, consider them “Orthodox”.

They might be Anglican and belong to the ACNA.

Which is where I came from, before I became an Eastern Orthodox prospect.

Perhaps you can share, the church’s website link here. This way, we can check it out for ourselves.

#5

They’re not Orthodox as in the Greek, Russian, or Eastern orthodox but orthodox in that they go back to the early church when they were together as one before the split (catholic/orthodox schism). They hold church like it was held in the beginning. So, they’re also not your typical Anglican church either.

http://www.allsaintsweatherford.org/

#6

I looked up the leadership - via that link. The bishop is part of the Anglican Church in North America. And under beliefs, they believe in the seven sacraments. Meaning they are probably Anglo-Catholic, under the jurisdiction of the ACNA. So you probably can’t go wrong, attending or joining them.