Is Westminster Abbey a Christian church????

[XavierJesusLovesIndia]

I see no logic in that, let alone biblical justification. The Wesley brothers were truly men of God, but not perfect. They even had disputes with each other and fell out for a time.

I don't know why you would pray for people who are in heaven, free from the flesh, who have no earthly needs and who know all things. God Himself wipes away any tears of regret and the blood of Christ erases sin as if it never happened. What do they need? Nothing.

Jude 1:24
"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy......"

The Reformation is a work in progress still. While much has been restored that was lost, there is still a way to go.

Hi Gideon. I think there were some good aspects about the Reformation, but there were also some mistakes made imo. To be clear, I am Catholic, so I on the other side of the Reformation debate. But I respect Good Christians like John Wesley and Nicky Gumbel. Also, good British/Irish Missionaries like Amy Carmichael and William Carey did good things for Christ in India. Now, regarding Biblical Justification, 2 Tim 1 has a passage where St. Paul prays for his friend Onesiphorus, whom commentators generally agree was a departed friend of his, as the context itselff suggests. See below for the passage. God Bless.

2 Tim 1:

16 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.

"Ellicott's Commentary from Bible Hub has this:

In that day.--The Apostle can never repay now--not even with thanks--the kindness his dead friend showed him in his hour of need; so he prays that the Judge of quick and dead may remember it in the awful day of judgment. It is worthy of note how St. Paul's thoughts here pass over the interval between death and judgment. It was on that day when the great white throne would be set up that he thought of the good deeds done in the body being recompensed by the righteous Judge. No doubt the expectation of the early Christians--in which expectation certainly St. Paul shared--of the speedy coming of the Lord influenced all thinking and speaking of the intermediate state of the soul between death and judgment, and almost seems to have effaced the waiting time from their minds." Taken from: https://biblehub.com/2_timothy/1-18.htm

 

[Evmur]

I did not know that. Many Christians rejected the TB. I don't know where Nicky Gumbel stands on it. It seemed to me at the time that it was mostly, but not exclusively, Pentecostals who were deceived.

Well you are wrong about that on two counts, first the Pentecostals in Britain were slow in recognising Toronto and second it was not a deception.

There was no doctrine involved only an experience.

Nicky Gumbel was a vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton a large and influencial Anglican church down in snobby South Kensington [very middle class] they led the fight against Maggie Thatcher's war against Sunday as a day of rest. Them Tories wanted to turn Sunday into just another working day, and they were set for victory too, the legislation was set to simply sail through the commons with the massive Tory majority.

But HTB declared a night of fasting and prayer.

It was a massive shock in modern British politics when the legislation was voted down. MPs left the chamber scratching their heads. Sunday was to retain it's special status.

I was never involved in the Toronto blessing except in a prayer meeting I prayed for a certain vexed young woman that she might know holy joy and she fell off her chair laughing. But I knew all the folks involved in the blessing, good people, sober and serious leaders at Westminster Chapel a very conservative evangelical assembly, Dr Martyn Lloyd Jone's old chapel ... calvinist.

I was attending Kensington Temple at the time and we began to get reports about strange goings on HTB and Westminster chapel and the famous All Souls church in Regents St.

If you ask me what Toronto was I would say that it was hysteria caused by a sensible awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit ... I have ALWAYS been aware of His presence and of His shekinah glory in meetings, the so called golden mist that folks reported seeing. Folks did not know what to do, what their response should be, so they laughed. It was a time of blessing and refreshing. People were wise not to attribute to it the attributes of revival.

The church is not ready for revival. Toronto was a blessing short of revival.

 

[Evmur]

2000: The Guardian reported that 250,000 agnostics in the United Kingdom turned to a belief in Jesus through Nicky Gumbel's Alpha course." Nicky Gumbel was also later recorded as being in attendance at some of the Toronto Blessing meetings.

Nicky Gumbel: Gumbel was the curate of Holy Trinity Brompton at the time of the Toronto Blessing and is the current vicar of the church, the biggest Anglican church in the United Kingdom. He has been quoted as saying that the Toronto Blessing was "the kick start that the Alpha course needed". wiki

At a cautious estimate, in Britain alone and in less than a decade, a quarter of a million agnostics have found God through Gumbel. Alpha is uniquely successful, and branching out abroad, so far to 112 countries (probably many more now, as this article is from 22 years ago). 120 of the 158 British prisons run Alpha courses; some have six-month waiting lists (again, may be more now). US Governor George W Bush was so impressed by the impact of Alpha in the British prison system that he wants to start a trial program at once in Texas.

On January 20, 1994, at a concrete church next to Toronto airport, 80% of the congregation, apropos of nothing, suddenly fell to the floor and began writhing around, apparently singing in tongues and convulsing violently. Rumours about this milestone - which became known as the Toronto Blessing - quickly spread to Britain. Nicky flew to Toronto to see it for himself. Was it mass hysteria or a miracle, a real experience of the Holy Spirit? "I don't talk about it now," says Nicky. "It divides people. It splits churches. It is very controversial. But I'll tell you - I think the Toronto Blessing was a wonderful, wonderful thing." Nicky returned from Canada, spoke passionately at HTB about the Toronto Blessing and, lo and behold, his congregation, too, began rolling on the floor, etc. The services soon became so popular, with queues around the block, that they were compelled to introduce two Sunday-evening sittings - and still not everyone could get in. HTB became Britain's richest church. (It still is: last year's income was £5.1m.) This evangelical euphoria lasted the year, with miracles such as Prison Alpha cropping up all over the place.

Nicky's new direction combined with his charisma, his dazzlingly constructed weekly talks, and the Toronto Blessing caused Alpha's popularity to explode through the 90s. In 1992, there were five Alpha courses in Britain; 100 rusty churchgoers attended that year. By 1994 there were 26,700 attendees. By the end of last year (1999), there were 14,200 courses around the world, with 1.5 million attendees. source

***

I found all of that very interesting, thank you I surrendered my opposition to God while attending
an Alpha Course, and highly recommend it to people looking for answers within the Christian faith.

There are 10 videos total.

An excellent [though conservative imo] assessment. George W's prison reforms [imo] was his outstanding achievement as POTUS.

 

[Evmur]

So, just how many people were murdered by Henry VIII and his minions of the Anglican Church? Estimates go as high as 72,000, and that's a huge number considering that England's population at that time was only 3 million: How many people did Henry VIII execute? - History with Henry

almost as bad as the various popes ...

 

[Gideon300]

Well you are wrong about that on two counts, first the Pentecostals in Britain were slow in recognising Toronto and second it was not a deception.

There was no doctrine involved only an experience.

Nicky Gumbel was a vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton a large and influencial Anglican church down in snobby South Kensington [very middle class] they led the fight against Maggie Thatcher's war against Sunday as a day of rest. Them Tories wanted to turn Sunday into just another working day, and they were set for victory too, the legislation was set to simply sail through the commons with the massive Tory majority.

But HTB declared a night of fasting and prayer.

It was a massive shock in modern British politics when the legislation was voted down. MPs left the chamber scratching their heads. Sunday was to retain it's special status.

I was never involved in the Toronto blessing except in a prayer meeting I prayed for a certain vexed young woman that she might know holy joy and she fell off her chair laughing. But I knew all the folks involved in the blessing, good people, sober and serious leaders at Westminster Chapel a very conservative evangelical assembly, Dr Martyn Lloyd Jone's old chapel ... calvinist.

I was attending Kensington Temple at the time and we began to get reports about strange goings on HTB and Westminster chapel and the famous All Souls church in Regents St.

If you ask me what Toronto was I would say that it was hysteria caused by a sensible awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit ... I have ALWAYS been aware of His presence and of His shekinah glory in meetings, the so called golden mist that folks reported seeing. Folks did not know what to do, what their response should be, so they laughed. It was a time of blessing and refreshing. People were wise not to attribute to it the attributes of revival.

The church is not ready for revival. Toronto was a blessing short of revival.

I wish that I could agree. I cannot. I spent a year checking it out. It is a counterfeit of the real thing. The biggest Pentecostal church in Australia started preaching that now we have the Holy Spirit, we don't need Jesus. Read John 16 and tell me how the TB matches up to how Jesus describes His ministry. RHB was telling people not to pray in the meetings. Watch the Copeland/RHB circus act that launched the TB in the US and tell me that is of God. You can find it on youtube. God's people are still being destroyed for lack of knowledge.

There is much talk of revival. I'm not convinced. I suspect that it will be a rerun of the 90's.

"He will glorify Me, for He will take from that which is Mine and will disclose it to you.........." John 16:14. The TB was all about the "Holy Spirit". There was little glory to Jesus. Meetings became a shambles. What happened to "decently and in order"? (1 Corinthians 14:40)

"For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible." Mark 13:22. The TB is nothing but lying signs and wonders. Avoid it like the plague.

 

[Gideon300]

Well you are wrong about that on two counts, first the Pentecostals in Britain were slow in recognising Toronto and second it was not a deception.

There was no doctrine involved only an experience.

Nicky Gumbel was a vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton a large and influencial Anglican church down in snobby South Kensington [very middle class] they led the fight against Maggie Thatcher's war against Sunday as a day of rest. Them Tories wanted to turn Sunday into just another working day, and they were set for victory too, the legislation was set to simply sail through the commons with the massive Tory majority.

But HTB declared a night of fasting and prayer.

It was a massive shock in modern British politics when the legislation was voted down. MPs left the chamber scratching their heads. Sunday was to retain it's special status.

I was never involved in the Toronto blessing except in a prayer meeting I prayed for a certain vexed young woman that she might know holy joy and she fell off her chair laughing. But I knew all the folks involved in the blessing, good people, sober and serious leaders at Westminster Chapel a very conservative evangelical assembly, Dr Martyn Lloyd Jone's old chapel ... calvinist.

I was attending Kensington Temple at the time and we began to get reports about strange goings on HTB and Westminster chapel and the famous All Souls church in Regents St.

If you ask me what Toronto was I would say that it was hysteria caused by a sensible awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit ... I have ALWAYS been aware of His presence and of His shekinah glory in meetings, the so called golden mist that folks reported seeing. Folks did not know what to do, what their response should be, so they laughed. It was a time of blessing and refreshing. People were wise not to attribute to it the attributes of revival.

The church is not ready for revival. Toronto was a blessing short of revival.

Hi Gideon. I think there were some good aspects about the Reformation, but there were also some mistakes made imo. To be clear, I am Catholic, so I on the other side of the Reformation debate. But I respect Good Christians like John Wesley and Nicky Gumbel. Also, good British/Irish Missionaries like Amy Carmichael and William Carey did good things for Christ in India. Now, regarding Biblical Justification, 2 Tim 1 has a passage where St. Paul prays for his friend Onesiphorus, whom commentators generally agree was a departed friend of his, as the context itselff suggests. See below for the passage. God Bless.

2 Tim 1:

16 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. 17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. 18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.

"Ellicott's Commentary from Bible Hub has this:

In that day.--The Apostle can never repay now--not even with thanks--the kindness his dead friend showed him in his hour of need; so he prays that the Judge of quick and dead may remember it in the awful day of judgment. It is worthy of note how St. Paul's thoughts here pass over the interval between death and judgment. It was on that day when the great white throne would be set up that he thought of the good deeds done in the body being recompensed by the righteous Judge. No doubt the expectation of the early Christians--in which expectation certainly St. Paul shared--of the speedy coming of the Lord influenced all thinking and speaking of the intermediate state of the soul between death and judgment, and almost seems to have effaced the waiting time from their minds." Taken from: https://biblehub.com/2_timothy/1-18.htm

Thank you for your considered reply to my post. I've said this before, but I want to reaffirm that my problem is not with individual Catholics. I was involved in the Charismatic renewal in the 1970's, not that I really knew what it was at the time. I met a number of Catholics and I attended some ecumenical meetings in Canberra, Australia's capital. I met an old Catholic nun who shone with Jesus. I met others that loved the Lord. I've met Catholics who are hidebound and religious and Pentecostal pastors who are worse.

The sad thing about the renewal was that the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic organisation in Australia put an end to ecumenical meetings. by about 1980, the renewal movement had run out of steam and it went back to business as usual.

My problem is with some RC doctrines and the structures of the organisation. Lord Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world. That is not the case with the Vatican, It's a nation, it has its own currency, army, diplomacy, economy and issues passports. But for the religious trappings, it is indistinguishable from a city state.

 

[ChristianTonyB]

The first Bible I read about five years ago was my moms and I studied with it and believed with it is called Westminster Study Bible revised standard version... My question is aren't they an Anglican communion I thought they believed in a different doctrine??? I also have this cool book of the treasures of Westminster abbey with pictures... I'm wondering why and how I got a bible from England first???? Anyone help me out??? What religion are they???

In response to your post's Title/Heading, no, it isn't a Christian fellowship. Neither is any other denomination that meets there or anywhere else in the world. Anyone or group that labels or regards themselves as anything other than just Christian or followers of Christ or the like, quite probably aren't. They'll argue otherwise, but by implication they'll have divided loyalties, and that's not tolerated by Jesus.

 

[Evmur]

I wish that I could agree. I cannot. I spent a year checking it out. It is a counterfeit of the real thing. The biggest Pentecostal church in Australia started preaching that now we have the Holy Spirit, we don't need Jesus. Read John 16 and tell me how the TB matches up to how Jesus describes His ministry. RHB was telling people not to pray in the meetings. Watch the Copeland/RHB circus act that launched the TB in the US and tell me that is of God. You can find it on youtube. God's people are still being destroyed for lack of knowledge.

There is much talk of revival. I'm not convinced. I suspect that it will be a rerun of the 90's.

"He will glorify Me, for He will take from that which is Mine and will disclose it to you.........." John 16:14. The TB was all about the "Holy Spirit". There was little glory to Jesus. Meetings became a shambles. What happened to "decently and in order"? (1 Corinthians 14:40)

"For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible." Mark 13:22. The TB is nothing but lying signs and wonders. Avoid it like the plague.

I don't talk much about the TB. I love the story about Ruth Calver wife of Clive Calver who was head of the Evangelical Alliance in Britain. Opposed to pentecostalism and totally opposed to the Charismatic movement.

Ruth was doing an article for a women's magazine about the goings on so she decided to go see the shenanigans for herself. She turned up and crept into the back of the auditorium and went down like a pole=axed bear, flat on her back, slain in the Spirit.

And she didn't want to get up either, she just lay there bathed in the Holy Spirit. The Calvers stopped criticizing that day.

The problem that happens to most every revival is the BAD theology of the leaders [ah I'm talking about human freewill]

'nother good thing that's come out of the TB is Joseph Prince ... now he is a prince among preachers, I tremble for him.

 

[Lynx]

In response to your post's Title/Heading, no, it isn't a Christian fellowship. Neither is any other denomination that meets there or anywhere else in the world. Anyone or group that labels or regards themselves as anything other than just Christian or followers of Christ or the like, quite probably aren't. They'll argue otherwise, but by implication they'll have divided loyalties, and that's not tolerated by Jesus.

And me with no facepalm button to use...

 

[Mission21]

That is not the case with the Vatican, It's a nation, it has its own currency, army, diplomacy, economy and issues passports. But for the religious trappings, it is indistinguishable from a city state.

Good point.
---
I remember.. visiting there, many years ago.
- Short trip.

 

[Athanasius377]

The first Bible I read about five years ago was my moms and I studied with it and believed with it is called Westminster Study Bible revised standard version... My question is aren't they an Anglican communion I thought they believed in a different doctrine??? I also have this cool book of the treasures of Westminster abbey with pictures... I'm wondering why and how I got a bible from England first???? Anyone help me out??? What religion are they???

Westminster is church that as first established by Bendictine Monks and later dissolved under Henry VIII. It is the place of coronation and burial for English/British monarchs for centuries. It is a church owned by the Church of England which is a member of the Anglican Communion which is the largest protestant church body and then third largest after Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy. Anglican simply means English. The King James Version of the bible is an Anglican translation and is the "Authorized Version" for use in Church of England churches.

Anglican doctrine is Reformed according to her formularies. They are:
1. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer
2. The Ordinal. Also found in the 1662 BCP
3. The 39 Articles of Religion. Again also found in the 1662 BCP

Some include the 1 and 2 Books of Homilies.

Delegates from the Anglican church were present for the Synod of Dordt which was called to resolve the Arminian Controversy. There are those who style themselves as Anglo-catholic and those who are some stripe progressive. Yet these according to her formularies these are not legitimate expressions of Anglicanism.

 

[roadoftravel]

If I'm a protestant which I am would safe to read my Westminster abbey book???