About the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
The ICCEC's website says: The Charismatic Episcopal Church exists to make visible the Kingdom of God to the nations of the world; to bring the rich sacramental and liturgical life of the early church to searching evangelicals and charismatics; to carry the power of Pentecost to our brothers and sisters in the historic churches; and finally, to provide a home for all Christians seeking a liturgical-sacramental, evangelical, charismatic church and a foundation for their lives and gifts of ministry.
Click here to view the CEC's diocesan newsletter.
What is the Charismatic Episcopal Church?
by Fr. Kenneth Tanner
We are a prophetic church, which means, among other things and primarily, that our communion is an anticipation of the reunion of the Church before that reality has taken hold across the body of Christ. As such we are a sign of contradiction that provokes either encouragement or suspicion, either brotherly love or not-so-subtle envy, either awe at what God has done in our midst or persecution from confused churchmen who cannot fit the good things they see happening into their church's tradition about who is the church, either respect or contempt. It all depends on the person who is looking at the "sign" we represent and what is in his heart. Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, Anglicans, and others have different reactions to us depending on how they perceive the sign.
Some of the more thoughtful and sober traditionalists have good reason to have doubts about us, as the history of the Church is replete with groups like ours, plants that seem to spring up possessing no historical contiguity with the ancient churches, led by strong, charismatic leaders, that devolve over decades into sects promoting either outright heresy or schism by exaltation of their beloved distinctives above the common tradition (insert: "good," "peace," you name it) of the wider body.
This is why it is important for us, as a body, to stay on mission, not allowing our focus to drift from the glorious vision the Spirit birthed in our hearts: to see the worship, teaching and common life of the early Christians -- centrally their exaltation of Jesus Christ -- enlivened in our generation as a means both to renew the Church and to witness to a postmodern culture the reality and power of Christ's resurrection. It is also important for us not to lose sight of the manifest signs of the Spirit's work in other parts of Christ's body. We are not the be-all, end-all. We have our place at the apostolic fire, but we are not the fire itself.
Forget about titles, vestments, head gear, proper salutations in the marketplace ("father," "your grace," "your beatitude"), bowings and prostrations, and all the odd assortment of liturgical finery that protocol dictates (good things that can yet clog the spirit, exalt the man, and lead to pride and arrogance if they are not _consistently_ denied our first love). Our first love is Christ and his body, the Church, ever ancient, ever new.
You see, we have no cause to boast, for if we are but a present sign -- in our doctrine and common life -- of the future reconciliation of the Church, then our servant mission to the rest of the body will end in the dissolution of our movement, in the emergence of The Bride, unblemished and ready to be presented to her Lord and Master. How will this come about, in what timeframe, and what will it look like? None of us has the first clue.
So, in the meantime, we remain faithful to what God has called us to do, in all the particularities and frustrations and blessings and deprivations and glories and trials of what it means to be called to this good communion of ours in this time of the world's story; humble and circumspect, yet confident in the face of adulation or persecution; reminded that it is the Spirit who leads the Church into all truth, that He is the author of the Church's unity and the guarantee that she will prevail against the gates of hell.
And what is the power that enables the Spirit's mission? It is the eternal love He shares in divine community with the Father and the Son. Therefore, a participation in the undying love of their Triune Life is the end (telos) of our mission.