Christian denominations and individuals within the movement have identified themselves as Ancient Faith or Ancient Church, Ancient-Future,[8]Convergence,[9]Charismatic Orthodox,[10]evangelical Episcopal,[8]paleo-orthodox, or Pentecostal Catholic or Orthodox.[6] Denominations in this movement have also been referred as some form of broader, or new Anglicanism or Episcopalianism.[11]
In 1973, Campus Crusade for Christ missionary Peter E. Gillquist (1938–2012) of Chicago established a network of house churches throughout the United States of America, aiming to restore a primitive form of Christianity, which was called the New Covenant Apostolic Order. Researching Christian history, Gillquist and his colleagues found sources for this restoration in the writings of the early Church Fathers. This led the New Covenant Apostolic Order to practice a more liturgical form of worship than in their previous evangelical background.[15]
In 1977, "The Chicago Call" was issued by the National Conference of Evangelicals for Historic Christianity, meeting in Warrenville, Illinois.[16] Led by Robert E. Webber (Assoc. Professor of Theology at Wheaton College), along with Peter Gillquist, Thomas Howard, Richard Holt, Donald Bloesch, Jan Dennis, Lane Dennis, and Victor Oliver, the conference discussed the need for evangelical Protestants to rediscover and re-attach to the Christian Church's historic roots. The conference issued several documents which together are known as "The Chicago Call." Components of the document include: "A Call to Historic Roots and Continuity; A Call to Biblical Fidelity; A Call to Creedal Identity; A Call to Holistic Salvation; A Call to Sacramental Integrity; A Call to Spirituality; A Call to Church Authority; and A Call to Church Unity."[16]
In 1984 Charisma magazine—one of the most influential magazines of the Charismatic Movement—published an article by Richard Lovelace entitled, "The Three Streams, One River?" (Sept 1984).[20] Lovelace approvingly noted the trend of Catholics, Evangelicals, and Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians moving closer together.
Robert Webber's 1985 book—Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals are Attracted to the Liturgical Church—documented the stories of six evangelical Protestants who, for various reasons, had transitioned to the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Publication of this book stirred up a great deal of interest in the evangelical Protestant press, generating numerous reviews in Christianity Today and other widely read evangelical publications.[1] In the following years, Webber wrote several additional books that had great influence on evangelical churches seeking to incorporate liturgy and traditional practices into their worship, and numbers of evangelical Protestants and charismatics continued to migrate to the historic liturgical denominations.
In 1995, the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches was organized.[24] In October 1995, approximately 300 individuals gathered from multiple denominational backgrounds; various bishops from Anglican, independent Eastern Orthodox and Old Catholic churches assisted in the episcopal ordination of the denomination's first two bishops, and the ordination of 25 pastors and 7 deacons.[25]
In 2011, Evangelical Episcopal Bishop Derek Jones was received by the Convocations of Anglicans in North America into the Anglican Church in North America.[26] By March 2012, under the leadership of Quintin Moore, the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches entered full communion with his Christian Communion International as the denomination's United States province.[27] From 2008–2014, the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches held informal ecumenical dialogue with the Catholic Church through Bishop Tony Palmer. During an audience with Pope Francis, Palmer and Bishop Emilio Alvarez served; Alvarez was official translator for the meeting.[28][29] Palmer continued to serve in papal audiences until his death, befriending Pope Francis.[30][11] His death was initially disclosed by Archbishop Charles Hill of Ambassadors for Christ Ministries of America,[31][32][33] whom he also befriended and was member of the same communion.[34] Archbishop Hill would later lead a Charismatic Old or Liberal Catholic denomination named the Ancient Church Global,[35] claiming descent from the Knights Templar.[36] In May 2023, a religious university founded by Hill for this denomination conferred an honorary degree upon Liberian politician Matthew Zarzar.[37][38]
In 2019, the Apostolic Communion of Anglican Churches—currently organized as the African Episcopal Church though originally in 2005 as the Abyssinian Apostolic Church—received the suspended Anglican Church in North America priest Jack Lumanog. Joining this denomination, Lumanog was declared to have no ecclesiastical status through any province of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans following his election and ordination to the episcopacy by Archbishop Darel Chase.[44][45][46] Following Lumanog's episcopal ordination and the formation of the Anglican Diocese of St. Ignatius Loyola, in 2020, Gideon Arinzechukwu was appointed interim archdeacon for this diocese in the Apostolic Communion of Anglican Churches.[47][48] Arinzechukwu was a deposed Episcopalian priest accused of sexual misconduct and fraud.[49] In December 2022, his church was publicly disowned by the Church of Nigeria to prevent alleged misrepresentation.[50][51][52][53] Chase's denomination also ordained a claimant to the Roman papacy,[54][55] and organized the National Bible College Association accreditation mill which accredited their self-established Metropolitan Christian University and Midwestern School of Divinity for their churches.[56][57][58]
Since the advent of Convergence Christianity, numerous denominations and organizations have sought or claimed apostolic succession through excommunicated Latin Catholic bishops and wandering bishops of Anglican and Orthodox traditions including Carlos Duarte Costa, Arnold Mathew, Joseph Vilatte, Aftimios Ofiesh, and others in order to preserve doctrinal and apostolic continuity and establish sacramental legitimacy.[65]
There is also an understanding through Catholic teaching on sacramental character; dogma suggests those excommunicated for valid but illicit ordinations—even those deposed and laicized—cannot have their orders or episcopal genealogy (apostolic succession) vacated or revoked though their use of the sacraments go unrecognized among those in communion with the Pope of Rome, as they have only been relieved of episcopal duties within the Latin Catholic Church and its Eastern Catholic Churches specifically.[69][70] In Catholicism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), §1121 expresses:
The three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders confer, in addition to grace, a sacramental character or seal by which the Christian shares in Christ's priesthood and is made a member of the Church according to different states and functions. This configuration to Christ and to the Church, brought about by the Spirit, is indelible; it remains for ever in the Christian as a positive disposition for grace, a promise and guarantee of divine protection, and as a vocation to divine worship and to the service of the Church. Therefore these sacraments can never be repeated.
Through the establishment of multiple denominations in the Convergence Movement, more than 2 million individuals have been claimed as adherents of its multiple organizations. According to self-reported statistics in 2023, the largest denomination in the movement is the Continuing Evangelical Episcopal Communion—reporting an estimated 2,100,000 members and 10,703 churches.[75] The second-largest denomination is the Evangelical Episcopal Communion, claiming to have planted more than 5,000 churches through its Province of St. Peter;[76] and over 100 churches and ministries altogether through Missio Mosaic and the Province of India.[77][78] Following, the Charismatic Episcopal Church with more than 1,600 churches as of 2008,[79] has been the movement's third-largest. The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches had 150+ churches and ministries through its provinces and U.S. dioceses.[80][81][82][78]
Denominations
The following is not a complete list, but aims to provide a comprehensible overview of the diversity among denominations of Convergence Christianity. Only organizations with Wikipedia articles will be listed.
^"The Convergence Movement". Basileians. Hendrickson Publications. October 1, 1995. Archived from the original on October 29, 2020. Retrieved 2020-09-12.
^"What We Believe". Holy Communion of Churches. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2022-08-18. With each church having a primary base, three different types of convergence churches seem to be most common today: blended churches, inclusion churches, and network churches. Blended churches have maintained their original identity, denominational connection and distinctive theologically. From this base they then are adding elements from the other two streams in their worship and ministry practices. While most common among Liturgical/Sacramental churches, blended churches are found in Evangelical and Charismatic streams as well.
^ ab"What is Convergence?". Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. Archived from the original on October 29, 2020. Retrieved 2020-07-19. As a Convergence communion, the CEEC embraces the Anglican precedent and seeks to be a true expression of the Ancient/Future Church, making visible the Kingdom of God, fulfilling the Great Commission, and manifesting fully the beauty, glory and power of the One Church and its Lord.
^ ab"About the ICCEC". International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. 2022-02-15. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
^ ab"Tony Palmer, who captured Pope Francis' bid for Christian unity with a cellphone, dies after motorcycle crash". Religion News Service. Religion News Foundation. 2014-07-22. Archived from the original on January 7, 2019. Retrieved 2021-02-15. Retired Pope Benedict XVI invited Anglicans to join the Catholic Church, allowing priests to remain married and continue to have some autonomy. With a Catholic wife, an international background and a charismatic evangelical blend, Longenecker wrote, Palmer served as the perfect "face" for new Anglicanism.
^Kurian, George Thomas; Lamport, Mark A. (2016-11-10). "Convergence Movement". Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 629–630. ISBN978-1-4422-4432-0. The Convergence Movement focused on the blending of different worship traditions into one. For this reason, it had several defining characteristics corresponding with the different worship backgrounds that were being blended together. One characteristic of the movement was the focus given to unity. Rather than being divided by the different denominations, the movement rejoiced in the one body of Christ seen throughout the whole world. The Convergence Movement was also defined by its focus on the early church. It sought to live in accordance with apostolic teaching and trace its authority back to apostolic origins.
^Melton, Gordon J.Encyclopedia of American Religions. 2003. pp. 629–630. "In the years after World War I, negotiations began to create a broad union that would include the Anglican and ... the "convergence movement," the term referring to the "convergence" of various streams of renewal that shared an understanding of the church as one Body with a variety of diverse but contributing parts. Following the lead of British bishop Lesslie Newbigin, the convergence movement affirmed the threefold essence of the church as Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox/Pentecostal. The church is Catholic as it relates to the emphases of "incarnation and creation," Protestant with an emphasis on "biblical proclamation and conversion," and Orthodox/Pentecostal in relation to "the mystical and the Holy Spirit."
^Vinson, Synan. Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. 1997. p294 "By 1990, like minded pastors were banding together in what they called a "convergence movement" designed to bring the three streams together in a new and powerful spiritual configuration. Even more striking were the cases of charismatic ..."
^Hopkins, Joseph (April 21, 1978). "Schism in the Order". Christianity Today. Vol. 22 no. 14. p. 45.
^Edward Jarvis, God, Land & Freedom: the true story of ICAB, Apocryphile Press, Berkeley CA, 2018, p 168
^"Former Charismatic Episcopal archbishop joins Roman Catholic Church". Catholic News Agency. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved 2021-02-15. Prior to his time with the CEC, Sly was an important voice of the "Convergence Movement", which worked to draw together the evangelical, charismatic, and liturgical/sacramental streams of the church.
^Yong, Amos. Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh. 2005. "The Charismatic Episcopal Church (1992) and the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (1995) are examples of organized expressions of the Convergence Movement (from the 1970s), which has sought to blend charismatic, evangelical ..."
^"Our History". Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2022-08-18. October of 1995, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, approximately 300 people gathered for the consecration of the CEEC's first two bishops and the ordination of 25 pastors and 7 deacons by bishops in apostolic succession from the Anglican, Orthodox and Old Catholic jurisdictions, who were committed to ecumenism. That night twenty-five independent congregations from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds came into the newly organized Communion. Bishop Michael Owen served as the first Presiding Bishop.
^"About". Continuing Evangelical Episcopal Communion. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2023-12-18. After three years of internal debate over the necessity of an overarching Canon Law, the CEEC.CHURCH's largest provinces have unanimously agreed to stand together. They continue to operate under their current version of Canon Law, adopted in 2016. In a decision guaranteeing the continued historicity and validation of the CEEC.CHURCH, 98% of original churches and clergy choose continuing communion and remain globally united, with only slight adaptation to their name.
^"Our History". Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches. Archived from the original on 2022-11-23. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
^Andrew Gross (2019-05-23). "Jon Ignatius Jack Lumanog Inhibited from Ministry". The Anglican Church in North America. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2022-08-18. Mr Lumanog's status is with one of the myriad of non-Anglican groups who loosely use a type of Anglican polity – that includes the use of Anglican titles. While we understand that he is titled as a "bishop" with this group, Mr. Lumanog is not a bishop with the ACNA or with any recognized ACNA or GAFCON communion body.
^"Leadership". The Anglican Diocese of St. Ignatius Loyola. 2021-08-19. Archived from the original on 2023-02-16. Retrieved 2023-02-16.
^Stokes, William (2020-04-06). "Notice of Order and Sentencing"(PDF). The Diocese of New Jersey. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2023-02-16. Retrieved 2023-02-16. Pursuant to Canon IV.14.12(a) of the Canons of The Episcopal Church, this is to notify you of an Order of a Hearing Panel of the Diocese of New Jersey involving Respondent The Venerable Gideon Arinzechukwu Uzomechina, a Presbyter canonically resident in the Diocese of New Jersey. This Order became effective on April 1, 2020. The Offenses which are the subject of this Order are specified in Canons IV.4.1(c), IV.4.1(d), IV.4.1(h)(1). IV.4.1(h)(6), and IV.4.1(h)(9) of the Canons of The Episcopal Church. Pursuant to the Order, Gideon Arinzechukwu Uzomechina has been sentenced to deposition from the ordained Ministry of The Episcopal Church.
^"About us". Messiah Anglican Church. Retrieved 2023-02-27. MEET OUR LEADER FATHER GIDEON A. UZOMECHINA: Having serve as a priest and missionary for over two decades following his seminary training in Nigeria and ordination into the Anglican Communion (Anglo Catholic tradition) as well as his Interfaith and Ecumenical studies in Israel, the Venerable Dr. Gideon Uzomechina, fondly called Father Gideon, is the Rector of spirit filled Anglican Church of the Messiah, Plainfield, the Archdeacon of New Jersey, and the Diocesan Director of Missions.
^"N.B. a False ORC Directory". The Canonical Old Roman Catholic Directory. 2017-06-27. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
^Dreher, Rod (2011-12-29). "Behold, the patriarch". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2022-08-18. Christopher Johnson at Midwestern Conservative Journal draws our eyes to Rutherford Johnson — that's His Royal Highness Prince Rutherford Johnson of Etruria, who is also Rutherford Cardinal Johnson, the patriarch of the recently invented Anglican Rite Roman Catholic Church.
^"Convergence Ecclesiology | Addendum 4: Apostolic Succession"(PDF). International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. 2018. A summary of Apostolic Succession may be described as Three Streams coming together to make one river including: Apostolic Faith/Doctrine (the Evangelical Stream); Apostolic Authority (the Liturgical/Sacramental Stream) and Apostolic Anointing (the Charismatic Stream). Using these categories, we note that the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey summarized the essential elements of Apostolic Succession as including: "First of all, the succession of Bishop to Bishop in office secured a continuity of Christian teaching and tradition in every See. Each followed the teachings of his predecessor, and so the succession of Bishops was a guarantee that everywhere the Christians were taught the true Gospel of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Having no such succession, the Gnostics had no claim to be the authorized teachers of the faith….Thus the succession of Bishops is a safeguard of continuous teaching…."
^"Automatic excommunication for bishop over illicit ordination". Catholic News Agency. Archived from the original on 2022-09-25. Retrieved 2022-09-25. According to canon 1382, both "A bishop who consecrates some one a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See."
^"Once a Bishop, Always a Bishop"(PDF). Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Retrieved April 10, 2022. The Church of England's Canon C.1, sec.2, explicitly agrees with the rest of Catholic tradition in this regard: "No person who has been admitted to the order of bishop, priest, or deacon can ever be divested of the character of his order," though he may be deprived or deposed from exercising it. The Episcopal Church accepts the same principle in practice by providing for the restoration of someone under the discipline of suspension, inhibition, or deposition without requiring re-ordination (Canon IV.13). Like baptism and confirmation, ordination seals someone permanently with the seal of the Holy Spirit, or to use similar language common in Western theology and in our Anglican formularies, it confers an indelible character. If a bishop is deposed for "abandoning the communion of this church," then "this church" must surely refer to our particular province over which we have a rightful control, and not to any other provinces of the Catholic Church for which he was also ordained. Is that perhaps why the Presiding Bishop does not seem to be bothered that Bishop Jeffrey Steenson and others are "abandoning the communion of this church" for the Roman Catholic Church, but seems very upset about bishops and parishes "abandoning the communion of this church" for some other province in the Anglican Communion, even so far as being willing to sell our property to Roman Catholics or Methodists or anyone else except Anglicans?
^"If a priest leaves the priesthood, is he still able to perform the sacraments?". Catholic Straight Answers. So what happens when a priest leaves the priesthood? Since Holy Orders is a character sacrament, once it has been validly received, it never is invalidated for any reason whatsoever. Granted, a cleric– deacon, priest, or bishop– may be freed from the clerical state and dispensed from the promise of celibacy by the proper authority. He may no longer have the obligations or the privileges to function as a cleric, but nevertheless he remains a cleric. Commonly, this practice is called laicization, meaning "returned to the state of the laity." (Code of Canon Law, #290-293.) Even though the cleric has been laicized and no longer functions as a deacon, priest, or bishop, he still has the sacramental character of Holy Orders. Technically, if he were to perform a sacrament in accord with the norms of the Church, that sacrament would indeed be valid. However, the sacrament would be illicit, meaning he violated Church law and would be culpable for this infraction since he no longer has the faculties to function as a priest.
^"The "Indelible Character" of Holy Orders". The Catholic Layman. 7 (76): 38–39. 1858. ISSN0791-5640. The Council of Trent decrees, that "in the Sacrament of Order . . . a 'character' is impressed which can neither be blotter out nor taken away:" and condemns all who affirm that "persons once rightly ordained can again be laics." (Sess. xxiii., ch. 4) "If any one shall have said, that by sacred ordination . . . . a character is not impressed or that he who was once a priest can again become a laic, let him be accursed." (Sess. xxiii., ch. 4) . . . . Where the mark is stamped on the soul, there there is "order;" and where that mark is not stamped on the soul, there is not order (according to the Church of Rome). And the Council of Trent declares that mark or "character" to be "indelible;" that is to say, once impressed on the soul, it can never be rubbed out or lost, or taken away.
^Pheidas, Vlassios. "Chapter I". The limits of the church in an orthodox perspective. Myriobiblos: The online library of the Church of Greece. Online Cultural Center of the Church of Greece. Archived from the original on 30 October 2005. Retrieved 14 May 2013. "Chapter II". Archived from the original on 30 October 2005. Retrieved March 14, 2022.