Reformed Episcopal Church
In October of that year, Cummins joined with Robert Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury, William Augustus Muhlenberg, and some non-Anglican ministers at an ecumenical conference of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance.During the conference, held in New York City, Cummins, Smith and the non-Episcopalian ministers presided at joint services of Holy Communion without using any version of the Book of Common Prayer.Retired missionary bishop William Tozer, who was visiting New York at the time, criticized Smith and implicitly Cummins for participating in the rite.Three weeks later, joined by 21 Episcopalian clergy and lay people, Cummins organized the first general council of the Reformed Episcopal Church in New York City on December 2, 1873.He described his understanding's evolution in a letter to Bishop Cheney, stressing his earlier attempts to create reforms within the Protestant Episcopal Church."We went before the General Conventions of 1868 and 1871 with petitions signed by hundreds of clergymen and laymen from all parts of the land, asking relief for Evangelical men.We asked but three things, the use of an alternate phrase in the baptismal office for infants, the repeal of the canon closing our pulpits against all non-Episcopal clergymen, and the insertion of a note in the Prayer-book, declaring the term "Priest" to be of equivalent meaning with the word Presbyter."[9] These failed earlier attempts and Tozer's criticism of the ecumenical communion service Cummins thought an opportunity for decisive action.[10] Rather than characterize this as schism, Cummins and his fellow reformers portrayed themselves as providing a Protestant, Anglican identity under which there could be a 'closer union of all Evangelical Christendom.'Cummins was in attendance at a Convention on 21 October 1868 and was greatly disappointed by the "Catholic" practices which he witnessed: "[a]ltars erected, with super-altars, with burning candles, and floating clouds of incense; the communion service set in a Roman framework ... there is a departure from the doctrinal basis of the Reformation.Due to this influx and the short-lived bishopric of the founders, the typical Reformed Episcopalian went from a Protestant, Latitudinarian pathos to a more Dispensationalist persuasion in a relatively short period of time, much of this happening in the early 1900s.[15] Within a year from the founding of the REC, like-minded Canadian Anglicans in New Brunswick and Ontario seceded from that Church and formed Reformed Episcopal congregations.[26] The Diocese of Western Canada and Alaska, created in 1996, had two parishes in British Columbia, led by Charles Dorrington, and also included the Missionary District of Cuba.Cummins' view of slavery maintained there was nothing inherently sinful about slave-holding and that the practice, in and of itself, was never condemned in Scripture as being an abomination to God or harmful to mankind.The Reformed Episcopal Church, holding "the faith once delivered unto the saints", declares its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God, as the sole rule of Faith and Practice; in the Creed "commonly called the Apostles' Creed;" in the Divine institution of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; and in the doctrines of grace substantially as they are set forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.2.This Church, retaining a liturgy which shall not be imperative or repressive of freedom in prayer, accepts The Book of Common Prayer, as it was revised, proposed, and recommended for use by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, A.D. 1785, reserving full liberty to alter, abridge, enlarge, and amend the same, as may seem most conducive to the edification of the people, "provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire."4.The Reformed Episcopal Church, according to its own Book of Common Prayer, holds that from Apostolic times, there have been three orders of ministry: Bishops, Presbyters and deacons.In his view, the Protestant Episcopal Church had changed its principles and thereby lost any claim to valid episcopacy when it adopted the 1789 Book of Common Prayer containing a "Scoto-Romish Communion service and a thoroughly Sacerdotal Institution Office", and when it created a House of Bishops with power to overrule the existing House of presbyters and laymen: "If there is such a thing as the Historic Episcopate, and it is of any value, the parties making this offer in the present case cannot deliver the goods.Inter-evangelical collegiality was an important issue for the REC, because Cummins had been censured for participation with Presbyterian and Methodist ministers in an inter-church communion service.In the Episcopal Church, such transfers had involved a process of application, examination, reception, and in some cases, conferral of holy orders, understood as a "regularization".[33] A 2006 document of the REC bishops, "True Unity by the Cross of Christ",[50] grants wider flexibility to re-interpret the Thirty-nine Articles in an Anglo-Catholic manner while maintaining the perspective of the English Reformers.Canon 22 states, "The duty of the Deaconess is to assist the Minister in the care of the poor and sick, the religious training of the young and others, and the work of moral reformation."[55] Although initially authorized in some states, its changes met with considerable resistance, and the Episcopal Church adopted a different text in 1789 as its Book of Common Prayer.[56][57] In accord with prevailing Evangelical preferences and in opposition to Tractarianism, the 1873 REC Council made various changes in order "to eliminate from the Prayer-Book the germs of Romish error, which the compromises of the Elizabethan era have transmitted to us."Cummins and other Evangelicals concerned about the influx of Anglo-Catholic Ritualism had been impressed by a tract, published by Frank S. Rising in 1868, entitled: "Are There Romanizing Germs in the Prayerbook?"The Reformed Episcopal Seminary has been at its current location for 17 years and recently acquired the building across the lot for additional classroom space and to house the book store.The seminary which is conservative, evangelical, biblical and Anglican was founded in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a rogative college, meaning it was located wherever the Bishop of the Southeast took up residence.Its purpose is to equip generations of Church leaders for excellence in ministry and service with the theological foundation and skills to meet the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of communities through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
ChristianAnglicanLow church AnglicanismPolityEpiscopalRay R. SuttonGAFCONFull communionAnglican Church in North AmericaAnglican Province of AmericaFree Church of EnglandChurch of NigeriaChurch of UgandaProvince of the Episcopal Church of SudanUnited StatesCanadaGeorge David CumminsNew York CitySeparated fromProtestant Episcopal Church in the USAAnglican ChurchProtestant Episcopal ChurchdiocesesAnglican CommunionRoyal U. Grote Jr.Ray SuttonDallas, Texas, USADavid L. HicksOxford MovementChurch of EnglandEpiscopal Diocese of KentuckyProtestantEvangelicalecumenical activityRobert Payne SmithWilliam Augustus MuhlenbergEvangelical AllianceBook of Common PrayerWilliam TozerNew York TribuneAnglo-CatholicBishop CheneyPresbyterCalvinisticReformed theologyLeonard RichesAfrican-AmericanSouth Carolina's Low CountryNew BrunswickOntarioVictoria, British ColumbiaChurch of Our LordMichael FedechkoIndependent Anglican Church Canada SynodCentral StatesMason, OhioPeter MantoMid-AmericaCathedral Church of the Holy CommunionDallasWalter BanekCharlie CamlinNortheast and Mid-AtlanticPhiladelphiaWilliam A. Jenkins Sr.SoutheastSummerville, South CarolinaWillie J. Hill Jr.Diocese of the WestWinfield MottMissionary Diocese of All SaintsDiocese of Western Canada and AlaskaBritish ColumbiaCharles DorringtonMissionary District of CubaDiocese of Mid-AmericaMissionary Diocese of CubaJohn BoonzaaijerProtestant Reformed Christian Church in CroatiaReformed Christian Church in CroatiaJasmin MilićDiocese of EuropeConvocation of Episcopal Churches in EuropeChurch of the Holy CommunionemancipationpaternalismThirteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionAnglican realignmentChurch of Confessing Anglicans Aotearoa/New ZealandDiocese of the Southern CrossAnglican Church in BrazilAnglican Church of RwandaAnglican Church of South AmericaEpiscopal Church of South SudanAnglican Diocese of SydneyAnglican Church of KenyaAnglican Church of ChileChurch of the Province of MyanmarProvince of the Anglican Church of the CongoAmerican Anglican CouncilAnglican Coalition in CanadaAnglican Communion NetworkAnglican Network in CanadaAnglican Network in EuropeFederation of Anglican Churches in the AmericasForward in FaithGlobal Anglican Future ConferenceGlobal Fellowship of Confessing AnglicansAnglican Mission in the AmericasConvocation of Anglicans in North AmericaEpiscopal Missionary ChurchPeter AkinolaGlenn DaviesRobert DuncanDrexel GomezPeter JensenAndy LinesGregory VenablesWindsor ReportHomosexuality and the Anglican CommunionGlobal South Fellowship of Anglican ChurchesContinuing Anglican movementPersonal ordinariateAnglican UseEnglish ReformationHoly Scripture