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DELAWARE: Anglicans woo conservative Episcopalians
by Gary Soulsman
Wilmongton News Journal
WILMINGTON (5/21/2005)--Because of controversies over gay ordination and other progressive policies in the Episcopal Church, Anglican churches in Rwanda and Southeast Asia have launched a church-planting movement in the United States.
The Anglican Mission in America has founded more than 70 fellowships and churches in the United States since 2000. Now a lay Anglican, Daniel Stoddart of Wilmington, is forming a Delaware fellowship that will likely be centered in the Glasgow-Middletown corridor of growth.
There are other Anglican churches in Delaware, but Christ Anglican Fellowship would be the first Delaware congregation of the Anglican Mission in America and would fall under the authority of archbishops from Rwanda and Southeast Asia. The fellowship is supported by St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in Philadelphia.
The Rev. Robert Placer of the Philadelphia area is Stoddart's teammate in the effort. He will lead the fellowship, which is mainly a ministry to the unchurched. About 20 people have shown interest so far.
Stoddart says conservative Episcopalians may be drawn to the fellowship, too, if they are disappointed over the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, consecrated in 2003.
Episcopal and Anglican churches have similar roots and are loosely affiliated. But last fall an Anglican commission rebuked the Episcopal Church for blessing same-sex unions and for permitting Robinson to be a bishop.
The commission called for a moratorium. In March, bishops of the Episcopal church decided not to bless any same-sex unions or approve any new bishops for a year.
Stoddart, 37, likes to think of the orthodox Anglican church as "the ancient future faith." It's a church that stands for the tradition of the early church fathers, he says, though it is not opposed to modern music and charismatic worship.
The Anglican church is a movement toward orthodoxy and a response to the crisis in faith and leadership that many have felt about the Episcopal church, he says. For him, it's an effort of reform from without, rather from within the Episcopal church. The movement is also an effort to reach the 130 million unchurched Americans.
Stoddart hopes to have an organizing meeting next month.To learn more, call 521-9562 or visit www.anglican missioninamerica.org.
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