Anglican Catholic Faith and Practice

by Mark Haverland

Genres: Religion

169 pages

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Aren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book utterly in a whim. I’d found it in some obscure website and thought it might clarify the difference between identifying as an Anglo-Catholic Episcopal versus an Anglican Catholic.

This book delivered FAR more than I could have expected.

While there seem to be some printing errors in my copy, the information within deals with the past, present and future of faith practices across a wide swath of Christian faith practices.

In simple, conversational language, this book tackles Bible cannon and history, the history of heresy, vestments, liturgical calendars and much, much more.

So many questions I’ve asked of priests and pastors over the years find succinct answers in this slim easy read.

Even if are neither Anglican nor Catholic, “Anglican Catholic Faith and Practice,” is a hearty jumping off point for examining what your faith tradition believes and why.

What an incredible little hidden gem of a book!

[Taylor Loy · Rating 1 out of 5]

In this book you will learn that green is “kind of a default color,” that Q means queen, B means bishop, and the thing that covers the communion stuff is a “stiffened cloth, generally matching the chalice veil, which holds the corporal,” whatever that means.

If this sounds boring, it’s because it is.

Aside from egregious misspellings like, “there was a was (time) when Christ was not,” or bizarre phrasing such as “Anglicans need not object to the idea of the Pope is (as?) the Vicar of Christ,” he doubles down on claims that otherwise cannot be excused by poor editing such as claiming that murder is always wrong, but not wrong if the state does it. Or that war is okay because…Latin. But it might be bad if you don’t force feed people who can’t swallow.

What we need is a proposed title for this definitely-not-a-book, because while it’s certainly bound, printed material, nothing but the appendix is written like a book. 90% of the document are just the rules and regulations of this tiny (35,000 member) denomination. Mind you, there are 4 times more Roman Catholics in Little Rock, AR alone than there are of the tiny sect about which this book was based in the entire world.

Other intricacies include arguing that Churches lose apostolic succession status and the right to be called anything but a cult if they follow the early church practice of ordaining women. Again, a reminder, 35,000 members.

In addition, the author thought that chapters should begin without proper headers which leads to consistent confusion.

Just, don’t buy this book. Don’t read it. Not just because it’s boring, but also because it isn’t a book!

[Michael Galdamez · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not the most mentally stimulating read ever, it is probably one of the best books out there that I'm aware of for learning about the doctrinal stance and historic basis for the Anglican Catholic Church. Don't expect to learn everything there is to know about Anglo-Catholicism from this book, but you can definitely expect to learn some high-level overview details about what this branch of Anglicanism believes. Honestly, it covered more than I anticipated, even addressing details related to moral issues posed in the modern church today, such as abortion, sexual standards for issues such as contraceptives (very similar to the Roman Catholic Church) and homosexuality, capital punishment, etc.

Personally, I very much appreciated this book, and while I didn't find everything as interesting or applicable to the questions I had, I think it gave me what I was looking for and acts as a very brief yet thorough primer on Anglican Catholicism.

[Kim Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great overview for those new to the Anglo-Catholic church. For me the sections on church history, authority in the church, and the sacraments were of particular interest and help.

[Christopher Pokorny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A helpful primer on Anglo-Catholic spirituality.

[Noah Ferrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

In short, this brief overview on this particular part of the Catholic Church achieves what it sets out to do, that is, briefly describe the beliefs and practices of the ACC as well as the continuing Anglican movement as a whole. Although Archbishop Haverland is the head of the ACC, this text does not claim to be authoritative, and its humility is shown in some of the more grey areas of its belief. This was very helpful for me when I first came into this church. I had the privilege of being confirmed by the Archbishop at his cathedral, and he is a very gracious and humble pastor of our church.