(RNS) — On Feb. 8, the diocesan council of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas officially welcomed Resurrection South Austin, a church planted by the Anglican Church in North America, which itself was formed when some 700 dissident parishes broke away from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in 2009 over disagreements about marriage for same-sex couples and the ordination of women.
The second ACNA parish to enter the Episcopal Church, Resurrection South Austin doesn’t represent a return to Episcopalianism: It was founded in 2015, years after the ACNA split, and only a small percentage of its congregants are former Episcopalians. This fits the profile of most in ACNA’s pews: Though data is sparse, the churches that have prospered most seem to be those founded since the split.
“It would be difficult for me to name one person who had been in the Episcopal Church,” said Shawn McCain Tirres, Resurrection South Austin’s founder and rector, or senior priest. That includes all of Resurrection South Austin’s clergy, he added.
Like many ACNA churches, it is full of people who grew up in a conservative evangelical Christian church and sought out Anglicanism after becoming frustrated with the evangelical tradition. Over time, the parishioners began to realize that the kind of Anglicanism they wanted to practice would be a better fit in the Episcopal Church than ACNA.
When the question was put to the church membership in 2023, about 120 people — 85% — voted to disaffiliate from ACNA. Some parishioners and at least one priest at Resurrection who didn’t want to join the Episcopal Church founded a new ACNA church instead, Immanuel Anglican. …