APRIL 6 "THE ANGLICAN CHURCH"
It was not that King Henry VIII had a
change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives
were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to
bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope
permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King
Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many
wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism,
taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself
as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new
branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant,
became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted
essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the
printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English Bible… just for
spite.
The Episcopal Church describes itself as being
"Protestant, yet catholic," as in universal. Though some commonly
refer to Anglicanism as a Christian movement in its own right, alongside Roman
Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy, a number of parishes within the
Episcopal Church keep many of the high church traditions of the Catholic Church.
Today the Church calls for the full legal
equality of gay and lesbian people, a movement partly inspired by their similar
call for racial equality during the mid-1900s. The church's General Convention has
passed resolutions that allow for the blessing of same-sex partnerships in states
in which it is legal.
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