‘In the Traditional Anglican Communion, You Are Also On Your Own’
December 3, 2012 8 Comments
So opts a rather despondent sounding Fr Ed Bakker:
… We often ask ourselves why we dont make a real in road with Traditional Anglicanism or Anglo Catholism, dont we ? And it clicked. I was on the vestry of this church, I was there every Sunday serving at the altar for nine years, but lived an hour’s drive away.
During that time, no one from Church ever rang me at home in Ringwood, Father Robarts never ever came out to see us , also when my wife had a chronic illness. It took me nine years to organize a servers get to gether in the city, yet we as servers see each other sunday after sunday. I give to God and his Church, but when I need people and help , it is not there. Then I was re-trenched from the Bank at 58 and asked Fr if he knew anyone influential in the congregation who could help with some work … and there were a few people there, all he could do is look above , indicating that God was the only influential person there. You see this is why I get so bitterly disappointed. In the Traditional Anglican Communion , you are also on your own, no collegues to support you , no nothing. A rude and lying Archbishop , who is thank God now almost disappeared from the scene.
Moving to another affiliation, much and much of the sameness, a Bishop who rings you once a year and spends five minutes talking to you.
Having said all, I still strong believe that I have been called to be a Priest , I guess in a very difficult time , but I keep on praying that the door somewhere may be opened.
So many Clergy on the blogs are so good in theory , they are so good with words , but when it comes to compassion and action, is is not to be found. Fathers Robarts, Mitchell all collegues of mine, they leave you in the learch , you never hear from them.
It would be wonderful if all of us in this forthcoming season of Advent could be realled stirred up and jump into action….
Well this certainly is not my experience of how things are… But then again, I’m not Down-Under (although I must add that I have some fantastic interactions with some really good TAC people in Oz, and that, even though I’m some 10 500 km away). One other thing, if I may be so bold as to suggest, Fr Bakker, is that you also look within. We cannot always change other people, the things they do and / or the things that they say. The only thing that we can, in reality, change is ourselves, our attitudes, and the outlook we have on life. As Victor Frankl once pointed out:
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Life, and more especially that of the Priest, is just so full of opportunities to make a difference in and to the lives of others. And these are the things that eventually give rise to major changes, differences and results. So get on with the work of the Gospel. Never should we allow for the waste of our precious time by criticising, complaining or even trying to get others to change. Just go and make the difference.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
- St Matt 28:20
UPDATE: Also related, Fr Anthony Chadwick speaks, today, on spiritual loneliness.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Father Stephen Smuts wrote this in response to my blog ” wanderings in Melbourne ”
I like to take the opportunity to respond if I may.
You live, as you say 10500 km’s away , so you dont really know what goes on down on the ground here in Australia.
It is good to hear that you had some fantastic internations with some TAC people in OZ. This could be very deceiving
I have fantastic interactions with clergy in different places , but in the end often they disappoint. That is human.
I think I had initially good interactions with you and Bishop Gill , but you dont really care about the future of former TAC Clergy. You have
shown to me that you are interested in gossip and details of underhand dealings of former Archbishop Hepworth, but you
have not made any effort to help me in my quest.You have the tendency to play people against each other in your blog, dont think that this is
such a good thing, but your readers just love it.
It is kind to suggest that I need to look within, frankly with looking after a sick wife and still visiting the sick and taking Holy Communion
to them , I have not had much time. Again and again you dont know anything about my life and the Church situation here, so you
cannot get away by just saying ” Just go and make a difference”.
Fr Ed Bakker OPR
Well, with this kind of bitter response (to what was intended to be a charitable and suggestive response to your rather accusatory post), it is little wonder you are in the position that you find yourself in.
It would be nice of you, Father, to reproduce any instance of my ‘play[ing] people against each other’ on my blog. Just one. In fact, I invite you so to do.
And if you bothered, you would note that as far as my ‘gossip and details of underhand dealings of former Archbishop Hepworth’ go, it is merely the reporting of news that is already out there, that affects us as members of the TAC. You go far further with your ‘rude and lying Archbishop , who is thank God now almost disappeared from the scene.’
In good conscience, I have done what little I could for you in your situation. But let me not concern myself further then after this, your poor blog post return.
Dear Father Stephen,
You are quick of the mark again. I dont intend to start a daily blogging correspondence with you, but I would like to confirm that I am not a bitter man. Admittedly my life is not that easy, but we all carry our crosses. I am sorry
that I could not see your response as a suggestive one. I just could not see it.
You run a blog where you let all the trolls loose. I am not going to quote
names but it is clearly there…. Ordinariate supports versus TAC.
TAC versus Ordinariate supporters and other trolls. Roman Catholics attacking
Anglicans.Evangelical Anglicans giving the Romans a good kick. If you dont see, you must have sand in your eyes. Yes my comments re Hepworth are strong , it is because it amazes me that Bishops and people in the TAC were quite often in the knowledge of what he was up to and they let him get away with it.
You see the danger with Forward in Faith and the TAC and other break away groups then you can become self indulgent and forget what the Ministry is really about.
Whilst I am fairly on my own ( which I dont really like ) I am still trying
to exercise some Ministry. Again and again you dont know what is it like
for a Traditional Anglican Priest in country Victoria and other parts of Australia where no one , I repeat no one is interested in Anglican Catholic worship. You are in a good position yourself , but other clergy are struggling.
You advised me to have a critical look at myself , can I advise you to do the same, especially at the way you conduct your blog.
This is my final comment to you.
Father Ed Bakker OPR
See Father, I’m all for free speech etc. which is the reason why you are able to get in your two cents worth here. If I wasn’t, then disagreeing comments, like yours, would be dispatched off into cyber-oblivion with one quick click.
Moreover, I’m hardly responsible for the opinions of others on or to the subject matter of the blog.
So, sorry you feel that way. All the best to you, then, Mate.
Ps. Don’t suppose you like cricket?
Wow! This is so very hard to read and hear, and just heartbreaking! But, sadly the dead bodies on the highway of modern so-called Anglicanism, are just too real! I am not going to jump into the middle of this, as I am one of those who has sought to give Roman Catholicism a “good kick”, certainly, since I am one of those “Evangelical Anglicans”! But, I also seek to stand for the classic and historic Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles! Which to my mind are certainly reformational and Reformed! If Anglicanism had followed “these”, it would not be in the central mess it is in today! So many clergy that quite simply have no business in the ministry or so-called holy orders at all! And this starts of course at the top, the Archbishop of Canterbury, down to the bishops, and local priests/presbyters. Indeed Anglicanism is simply in a state of apostasy today, most certainly the English! But I will not further pound that pulpit, though as obvious as it is!
I wish and really hope and pray the best for Fr. Ed Bakker! I too, am now, basically retired, save some hospital chaplain work as an Anglican. And my dear wife also suffers from chronic illness (COPD). (Thank God we don’t need money, God has given us great providence here). But, I enjoy still much other fellowship with many of my other Christian brethren, Lutheran, Presbyterian, (evangelicals), to even some of the so-called Open Brethren! Indeed I stll love to preach & teach! THIS is my calling in Christ, and this is of course in Word & Sacrament!
Btw, I appreciate this blog, not perfect.. no blog is. But, it is a place for Christian bloggers to come, obviously Anglo-Catholics, Ordinariate’s, and Roman Catholics, and note too even a few Orthodox! But, I pray too still a few of us Anglicans – all! Whatever stripe, but who believe that Jesus Christ is Savior & Lord of all!
As for “trolls”, bring ‘em on, perhaps they might hear the Gospel of Christ, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Zech. 4: 6)
This is a strange contrast to certain Desert Fathers who got fed up with the World and left to be by themselves in the desert. They, in a mirror-image of this situation, ended up attracting people they really didn’t want following them around. They found ways of coping with that, I suppose.
Not in any way suggesting that the eremitic life is for everyone, but they are to me a good standard in a world which is increasingly isolated and alienating despite being more socially connected.
Those Fathers have taught me that In the end, only God is the only One you can truly count on.
Have you read the life of St Sergius of Radonezh? He was a 14th Century Russian monk who tried very hard to be a hermit, but such was his holiness of life that every time he moved further into the forest, other monks found him and built their cells near him. Eventually he was bullied into becoming their abbot.
Dear Fr Stephen
While I do not agree with the tone or some of the detail of Fr Ed’s cri de coeur, I can sympathise with his feelings of abandonment. I was a regular worshipper at the main TAC parish in Perth (Western Australia) until it became obvious that I was not going to be one seeking “asylum” in the Ordinariate. Even before the announcement of the Ordinariate of “Our Lady of the Southern Cross”, I was pressured to move on. This despite many promises by the local TAC leader (now Ordinary) that those of us who did not see Anglicanorum Coetibus as the answer to our prayers would not be abandoned without spiritual and pastoral care. I and others like me (including some who had been members of this congregation long before Fr Entwistle arrived in the mantle of Moses) discovered that in fact that is exactly what happened. No advice or direction about possible new spiritual homes was given, our names were quickly removed from the parish prayer diary, and we were reduced to the status of non-beings.
I could go on with other examples of this but that is not the point of my response to this post. There have been attempts by the remnants of the (non-Hepworth) TAC hierarchy to get in touch with clergy in the Eastern states, but for those of us in WA, we remain scattered and shepherdless.
I think it largely comes down to communication. Information within the TAC was very strictly policed under the previous regime – when I tried to make my fellow worshippers aware of positive or alternative sources of information about continuing Anglicanism outside our little circle, I was described as “negative” and “disruptive”. The vast majority of TACers here were not tech-savvy or users of the Internet – they relied on their clergy – all very pro-Ordinariate. I found my own affirmation through blogs such as this one – while I might not agree with everything they said, at least I got some balance.
The greatest sadness of the whole activity of the last few years has been the invective and uncharitable attitudes that have been publicised among us. Whether we agree with the form it takes, each of us is surely united in our search for faithfulness, our reception of Jesus’ love, and our need for forgiveness and sustenance. The character assassination and factual inaccuracies that have littered the blogosphere bring great disrepute upon the Body of Christ that we are supposedly part of.
PLEASE, my brothers and sisters in Christ, let us try and deal with each other with care, love and courtesy. It is nothing less than what we would hope for ourselves. It is what is expected of us. It is what our mission demands.