{"id":21687,"date":"2014-07-04T16:45:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-04T20:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=21687"},"modified":"2014-07-04T16:45:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T20:45:59","slug":"anglican-and-lutheran-leaders-meet-to-compare-notes-on-who-is-in-steeper-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/anglican-and-lutheran-leaders-meet-to-compare-notes-on-who-is-in-steeper-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"Anglican and Lutheran leaders meet to compare notes on who is in steeper decline"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leaders of the North American Anglican and Lutheran Churches recently met in Toronto to discuss mission<\/em>. With each denomination in dramatic decline \u2013 the Anglican Church of Canada had a pitiful average Sunday attendance of around 141,000 in 2007 \u2013 it only makes sense that they pool their survival strategies, known as \u201cmission\u201d in ecclesiastical parlance, to attempt to eke out an existence at least until the current generation of clergy start collecting their pensions.<\/p>\n

This \u201crenewed focus on mission\u201d has created a sense of \u201crenewed energy\u201d, apparently; to paraphrase Dr Johnson, nothing concentrates the mind as effectively as the prospect of one\u2019s imminent demise.<\/p>\n

As part of the plan to demonstrate that the denominations are still relevant and to allay the suspicion that the meeting was entirely self-serving, the leaders have promised to issue a joint statement on climate change. Many of us have been waiting agog with anticipation for a joint Anglican-Lutheran statement on climate change: if that doesn’t fill the pews, nothing will.<\/p>\n

Fred Hiltz is confident that conflict around same-sex marriage is not as all-consuming as it used to be. This shouldn\u2019t be too surprising since most of those who disagree with the church\u2019s determination to bless same-sex unions have either left, died or are too exhausted to argue any more.<\/p>\n

\"four-way\"From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When the heads of the Anglican and Lutheran Churches in North America met recently in Toronto, a common theme emerged when they shared developments in their respective churches: all felt a sense of \u201crenewed energy\u201d that they attributed to a \u201crenewed focus on mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the big things he heard, said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, was that, \u201cWe\u2019re in a different place\u2026Notwithstanding the fact that there\u2019s still some tension within our churches around human sexuality, we could all say, \u2018we\u2019re in a much less conflicted place.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While conflicts around same-sex blessings and same-sex marriages remain, \u201cit\u2019s not all consuming compared to, say, a few years ago,\u201d said Hiltz in an interview.<\/p>\n

Hiltz, along with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada Bishop Susan Johnson, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton met in Toronto July 2 and 3. The meeting was the fifth of informal talks colloquially known as the \u201cFour-Way\u201d dialogue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The leaders of the North American Anglican and Lutheran Churches recently met in Toronto to discuss mission. With each denomination in dramatic decline \u2013 the Anglican Church of Canada had a pitiful average Sunday attendance of around 141,000 in 2007 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2032,2127,722,2145,2262],"class_list":["post-21687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican-church-of-canada","tag-anglican-church-of-canada","tag-elca","tag-elcic","tag-fred-hiltz","tag-tec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}