Invest in the Future of Anglican Formation

Faced with economic instability, political chaos, cultural unrest, and ecclesiastical confusion, it is easy to scramble for the nearest safe place. For some, safety is found in the older, settled things simply because they are older and settled, and so they cling to the pylon of what was simply to avoid being swept away by what is. For others, it is safest to abandon resistance and instead embrace the new world, including its core dogma that all the things once believed and confessed must now be up for grabs, redefined, and ultimately left behind.

At Greystone we believe that both of these paths end in tears, not safety. We do not regard the past as merely imposing itself on the present. There is no safety there. We must not compromise the unique authority and work of the Spirit through Holy Scripture and ignore the urgency of attentive, constructive faithfulness in the midst of our actual conditions.

But neither do we regard the received faith and life of the Church as subject to the winds and whims of our current moment, requiring negotiation in the name of missional effectiveness. This would deny the Lordship of Christ over all times, and empty the Word and Spirit of the promise and power to transform rather than to indulge. No, we must continue to herald the summons to the world to be reconciled to God, not suggest that God should be reconciled to us.

Is there another way? Looking to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, we rejoice in the Lord of providence who makes, unmakes, and remakes the forms of his diverse people across time, fitting and conforming the Church to the contours of the glorious Son. By Word and Spirit he works in history, reconciling his beloved Body to her Head, gathering his people from the ends of the earth (and the ends of hopelessness) to himself. In that work, he has enriched traditioned expressions of his Church across time with special contributions they make to the fidelity and fruitfulness of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. The Formularies of classical Reformational Anglicanism are just such a contribution by which the Church catholic has been spiritually enriched, reformed, edified, and animated in fruitfulness.