I respond to a critic over at The Anglo-Catholic

I was going to joke around that I was going to beat up poor Terry from Japan who wrote a rather over-the-top response to something I had written, but I decided that since my archbishop reads the blog and we now have a Forward in Faith bishop from the UK on our roster, along with several priests, I should behave myself. The problem is that some people will not get that you're trying to be funny and think you really are "beating up on Terry."

Here's an excerpt:

Last weekend, I attended a service at an Anglican Network in Canada church
in another city. This is the group that has separated from the Anglican
Church of Canada for its departure from the authority of Scripture and
represents the evangelical and charismatic streams of the Canterbury
Communion. I went early to the BCP service, but it was dramatically
different from the formal way my little TAC parish does a said Eucharist.

There were only about four of us present. The minister (he calls
himself a pastor, not a priest) sat with us part of the time. The
readings were not from the day according to the BCP for that Sunday but from the
new lectionary. It was very informal. The sermon was excellent. Very well
thought-out and beautifully linked up Old and New Testament. I was impressed at
how hard he worked at this for such a small audience. The church building
was modern, had some crosses about and some appliqued banners. The altar was a
table of sorts, with no altar coverings to indicate it was Lent. But I felt
welcomed and at home nevertheless. A drum set and microphones were set up
for a contemporary worship service later that morning.

It was not what I have grown accustomed to in our little Traditional
Anglican Communion cathedral in Ottawa, but very familiar to me from previous
experience in evangelical and charismatic churches. And this pastor is a
beautiful, holy Christian. I have had a family emergency going on in that city,
and this man, who did not know me from Adam, responded to an email request on
the recommendation of another Anglican Network priest who is on a Christian
writers’ listserve I belong to, and started visiting my family member in
hospital and has been an immense support to me. That Sunday service was my
first time meeting him face to face.

During his sermon, he mentioned how there could be beautiful, formal
liturgies, but teaching from the pulpit that ran totally contrary to the Word of
God. Uh huh. And I have witnessed beautiful formal liturgies done
with the lips flapping and the bodies moving but it seems the hearts and minds
somewhere else other than on worshipping God. Gee, sometimes it’s me
thinking about something else while my lips say the Confession or the Prayer of
Humble Access. It’s that kind of formalism that has probably done more
than anything else to turn people away from traditional liturgy.

It is possible to make an idol of the Book of Common Prayer, and sadly,
I have found many Traddies, both Anglican and Roman Catholic alike, can tend to
nurse a continual sense of mild outrage. There is always something to be upset
about, right? As I have to tell myself often, being appalled is not one of
the fruits of the Spirit.Yet, I ask, why can’t we have it all? Why
can’t we be as evangelical and fervent about the Holy Scripture and spreading
the Good News as the best evangelicals? As charismatic and freely operating in
the supernatural gifts of the Spirit as the best charismatics? As Catholic and
intellectually profound, assenting to the whole counsel of God, as the best
Catholics? As traditionally Anglo-Catholic with all the smells and bells, the
thees and thous, and genuflection to boot? And while I love and admire the
different expressions of Christian worship in the Body of Christ and have
benefited greatly from the loving witness of my brothers and sisters who are not
Catholic, I hope we can revive a precious heirloom of western civilization
through the Ordinariate and bring back a fullness that many don’t even realize
is missing because they have never experienced it.

There's more, including my relationship with "crafts".