Any Episcopalians in the house?

[seanman611]

I don’t know why all these predictions of doom and gloom for the Anglicans when compared to other Christian denominations. It seems that most of them aren’t doing that well.

As I already posted earlier, the Catholic Church has also had a net decline in membership in Latin America, going from 90% of the population before 1960 to 69% now. Another recent survey found that Catholics in the US who regularly attend Mass fell from 47% in 1974 to only 24% in 2012. Also according to that survey, “In 1988, there were 19,705 parishes in the U.S., while there are now 17,483, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University…The current number of parishes is about equal to the number that existed in 1965, even as the number of self-identified U.S. Catholics has risen in the past half-century, from 48.5 million to 76.7 million between 1965 and 2014, according to CARA’s data.”

pewforum.org/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/06/the-number-of-u-s-catholics-has-grown-so-why-are-there-fewer-parishes/

It is absolutely true that most denominations are on the decline, liberal and conservative. That said, no mainline denomination is declining at the rate of TEC and TEC is one of the smaller of the mainline churches and it cannot afford to lose members like some of the other denominations of Christianity can.

Personally, I don’t think TEC will disappear, but the outlook is certainly not good. Again, I believe TEC and ELCA will merge at some point in the near future.

 

[Abu]

To namax91: “Wouldn’t becoming independent of Rome amount to leaving the Catholic Church?”
Novocastrian replied: “If you think that to be saved all creatures must be subject to the Roman Pontiff, then yes. If not, then not necessarily.”
What is the reality?

On June 29, 1998, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger issued a “doctrinal commentary” to accompany Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Ad Tuendam Fidem, which established penalties in canon law for failure to accept “definitive teaching.” Ratzinger’s commentary listed Pope Leo XIII’s apostolic letter Apostolicae Curae, declaring Anglican orders to be “absolutely null and utterly void,” as one of the irreversible teachings to which Catholics must give firm and definitive assent.

Salvation is open to all, but depends on following one’s conscience to the best of one’s ability, seeking to form a right conscience and, when the Catholic Church is recognised as Christ’s sole institution, joining Her and following Her teaching.

All who may be saved are saved through the Catholic Church, whether they know it or not, for salvation for anyone can come only through Christ’s Church. Christ offers the actual graces which can enable them to follow the natural moral law, and come home if they have the opportunity to so do.

 

[Thorolfr]

All who may be saved are saved through the Catholic Church, whether they know it or not, for salvation for anyone can come only through Christ’s Church. Christ offers the actual graces which can enable them to follow the natural moral law, and come home if they have the opportunity to so do.

Other religions say something similar about themselves. For example, Muslims say that everyone is a Muslim whether they know it or not, but many have gone astray by adhering to corrupted scriptures that were first brought to them by prophets before Muhammad including Jesus whom Muslims consider to be one of their prophets. That’s why former Christians and people of other faiths who become Muslims often call themselves “reverts” because they claim that they are reverting to the true faith.

 

[Abu]

Thorolfr #141
Other religions say something similar about themselves. For example, Muslims say that everyone is a Muslim whether they know it or not, but many have gone astray by adhering to corrupted scriptures that were first brought to them by prophets before Muhammad including Jesus whom Muslims consider to be one of their prophets.

So what?

No other religion has faith in a God who has taken a human nature, historically has been crucified and risen, with the testimony of many eye-witnesses.

The historian Eusebius in his Church history, 4.3, 1.2, tells us that writing about 123 A.D., apologist Quadratus cited those in his day who had been cured or raised from the dead by Jesus of Nazareth – prime witnesses – long after the miracles, crucifixion and death of the Son of God. No other religious founder claimed to be God and proved it – not Mohammed of Islam, not in Hinduism, not in Buddhism, not in Taoism, not in Confucianism.

The vast gulf between Catholicism and any other religion is that the Catholic Church has been founded by a Divine Person who lived with a human and divine nature and claimed to be God, proving that claim by His resurrection. When God leads us through His Church, others fashion their own beliefs and morals.

Even Adolf von Harnack, a rationalist historian of high repute among Rationalists and Protestants, wrote that the Synoptic Gospels were written before 70 A.D. – before the fall of Jerusalem, and accepted the tradition that St Luke derived his information on the infancy of Jesus from Mary His Mother. Theologische Quartalsch, Tubingen 1929, IV, p 443-4]. [See *Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, The Saint Austin Press, 2001, Sheehan/Joseph p 89, 93].

Not only are the facts of Jesus miracles recorded by His own Apostles who were present – Saints Matthew and John were companions of Christ, and Saints Mark and Luke lived in constant contact with His contemporaries.

His miracles “were so frequent, the eyewitnesses so numerous, and the evidence so stark, that not even Christ’s enemies disputed the fact of their occurrence. Instead they ascribed them to the power of the devil, or defied Him to perform another one in His own favour.” (See Mt 12:24; 27:39-42; Jn 11:47). Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Sheehan/Joseph, Saint Austin Press, 2001, p 104].

It was this Jesus, the Son of God, who said to His apostles “he that hears you hears Me” (Lk 10:16) – that Jesus that founded His Catholic Church.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Other religions say something similar about themselves. For example, Muslims say that everyone is a Muslim whether they know it or not, but many have gone astray by adhering to corrupted scriptures that were first brought to them by prophets before Muhammad including Jesus whom Muslims consider to be one of their prophets. That’s why former Christians and people of other faiths who become Muslims often call themselves “reverts” because they claim that they are reverting to the true faith.

If everyone is a Muslim, one wonders why so many of these latent Muslims are being beheaded by their brothers.

 

[Contarini]

There was certainly a rivalry for a while, otherwise St. Thomas More would not have been killed, monasteries ransacked, or Catholicism made illegal.

From the standpoint of the rulers of England who engaged in these evil acts, More was killed for his refusal to submit to the divinely ordained authority of the monarch over the Catholic Church in England; the monasteries were closed because their existence was not cnoducive to the common good of the Christian people of England (i.e., the Catholic Church in England), and people were forbidden to attend Eucharists celebrated by foreign priests who were trying to set up a rival church to the Catholic Church in England.

I do not defend this perspective; I merely explain it.

Wouldn’t becoming independent of Rome amount to leaving the Catholic Church?

That is precisely the point at issue between Anglicans and “Roman” Catholics.

Edwin

 

[Novocastrian]

the monasteries were closed because their existence was not cnoducive to the common good of the Christian people of England (i.e., the Catholic Church in England)

If I remember correctly, and I shall try to hunt out proper references, the Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia (1536-7), accepted by Paul III from such luminaries as Cardinals Contarini (I suspect we share an admiration of the man!), Pole, Sadoleto (of Calvin fame), and Carafa (Paul IV), among others, recommended a major reform of Latin monasticism. While stopping short of proposing to abolish monasticism as happened in England, it does seem that in the 1530s there was a good chance of a major dissolution right across Western Europe, as part of pre-Tridentine Catholic reform.

Edit: I’m sure that you’re more familiar with all of this than I am, but I thought others would benefit from seeing how on such an issue Christendom was not divided along black-and-white, Rome vs. Protestantism lines.

 

[GKC]

If I remember correctly, and I shall try to hunt out proper references, the Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia (1536-7), accepted by Paul III from such luminaries as Cardinals Contarini (I suspect we share an admiration of the man!), Pole, Sadoleto (of Calvin fame), and Carafa (Paul IV), among others, recommended a major reform of Latin monasticism. While stopping short of proposing to abolish monasticism as happened in England, it does seem that in the 1530s there was a good chance of a major dissolution right across Western Europe, as part of pre-Tridentine Catholic reform.

Edit: I’m sure that you’re more familiar with all of this than I am, but I thought others would benefit from seeing how on such an issue Christendom was not divided along black-and-white, Rome vs. Protestantism lines.

And the culling of the monastic realm, for reasons good, or otherwise, was a steady process, on a much smaller scale, in England, for 150+ years prior. Fisher and Wolsey directing such things, in their day, primarily for the benefit of education.

GKC

 

[Contarini]

If I remember correctly, and I shall try to hunt out proper references, the Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia (1536-7), accepted by Paul III from such luminaries as Cardinals Contarini (I suspect we share an admiration of the man!), Pole, Sadoleto (of Calvin fame), and Carafa (Paul IV), among others, recommended a major reform of Latin monasticism. While stopping short of proposing to abolish monasticism as happened in England, it does seem that in the 1530s there was a good chance of a major dissolution right across Western Europe, as part of pre-Tridentine Catholic reform.

Edit: I’m sure that you’re more familiar with all of this than I am, but I thought others would benefit from seeing how on such an issue Christendom was not divided along black-and-white, Rome vs. Protestantism lines.

I don’t think the Consilium would have led to monastic dissolution, and I think it’s certainly true that the English government used the widespread conviction that reform was needed as an excuse for getting rid of monasticism altogether and confiscating the large amounts of property involved. But yes, such a conviction was widespread. Be it noted that the one monastic group that resisted the dissolution steadfastly, resulting in a number of martyrdoms (the Carthusians), was also the one tradition that pretty much everyone agreed didn’t need much reform.

Edwin

 

[commenter]

Contarini and I see the Anglicanism of TEC/CoE /1st world Anglicanism differently. And he and I have danced the subject, over the years. In fact, he was the first person to reply to me, after I posted the first time I ever posed anything, anywhere, maybe 15+ years ago, on that very topic. But we agree that the decline that TEC has experienced over the past years does not mean that it is going to disappear. When I say the thing is a train wreck, I mean doctrinally, in its trajectory.
GKC

(Bold added)
I wish posters would stop quoting statistics (“Your denomination’s decline is worse than mine, so there!”). Christ never promised His Church would be numerically successful, just guided by the Spirit in truth. I agree with GKC that TEC’s current problems are doctrinal, and won’t go away if they expanded. I also would say the strength of the Catholic Church, and fewer and fewer other churches, is based on doctrinal fidelity. The Church’s strength - the reliability of the truth of its doctrine - is not weakened even if 99% of people, even if 99% of Catholics - disagree with its doctrine at a given time.

I don’t deny other churches - the LCMS, Continuum, and others - are fighting for doctrinal fidelity. I believe one of the guides, or templates they use, to measure or regularly re-calibrate their doctrinal orthodoxy is the present Roman Catholic Church.

 

[Contarini]

GKC notes in his post that the Anglican communion is a train wreck. Crickets.

I post that the wheels are coming off the Anglican communion, and I get blasted by Contarini.

As GKC pointed out, he was speaking theologically. He is an Anglican who regards the Episcopal Church and “mainstream” Anglicanism in the developed world generally as having theologically betrayed orthodox Anglicanism. That is a perspective I respect and partly agree with, although I differ strongly with him on women’s ordination and find the problems in the Episcopal Church generally more tolerable than he does. (Episcopalianism has never, I think, been a live option for GKC. I joined it after many hesitations and continue to be unsure that it’s where I ought to be–in fact I’m pretty sure it isn’t, even if I don’t go through with RCIA. So we differ not as a zealous partisan and an opponent, but as someone with misgivings and someone for whom this form of Anglicanism has never exercised any appeal even when it was relatively more conservative than it is not.)

I reacted as I did because of your last sentence about the “darkened building,” which indicated that by "the wheels are coming off’ you meant not “the Episcopal Church is moving even farther and farther away from the orthodox doctrine taught by the Catholic Church” but “the Episcopal Church is collapsing numerically to such an extent that it will soon cease to exist, so why bother joining it?” The former would have been an entirely legitimate point. The latter was smarmy and below the belt, and completely unrealistic besides.

As commenter just said, let’s all stop using statistics to argue against each other.

Isn’t Truth what matters? Isn’t truth still truth only if a few people believe it? So why bringin the numbers business at all?

Edwin

 

[GKC]

I don’t think the Consilium would have led to monastic dissolution, and I think it’s certainly true that the English government used the widespread conviction that reform was needed as an excuse for getting rid of monasticism altogether and confiscating the large amounts of property involved. But yes, such a conviction was widespread. Be it noted that the one monastic group that resisted the dissolution steadfastly, resulting in a number of martyrdoms (the Carthusians), was also the one tradition that pretty much everyone agreed didn’t need much reform.

Edwin

Plus the Observant Franciscans, and the Bridgettines.

And yes. In Hank’s (Cromwell’s, actually) case, it was follow the money

GKC

 

[Novocastrian]

I don’t think the Consilium would have led to monastic dissolution, and I think it’s certainly true that the English government used the widespread conviction that reform was needed as an excuse for getting rid of monasticism altogether and confiscating the large amounts of property involved. But yes, such a conviction was widespread. Be it noted that the one monastic group that resisted the dissolution steadfastly, resulting in a number of martyrdoms (the Carthusians), was also the one tradition that pretty much everyone agreed didn’t need much reform.

Edwin

From John Olin (ed.), The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola New York; Evanston; London: Harper & Row, 1969, p. 193.

Another abuse must be corrected with regard to the religious orders, for many have become so deformed that they are a great scandal to the laity and do grave harm by their example. We think that all conventual orders ought to be done away with, not however that injury be done to anyone, but by prohibiting the admission of novices. Thus they might be quickly abolished without wronging anyone, and good religious could be substituted for them. In fact we now think that it would be best if all boys who have not been professed were removed from their monasteries.

Footnote 19, op.cit.: The Consilium quite clearly is not recommending “the abolition of monasticism” as H. R. Trevor-Roper states it is in his Historical Essays (New York, 1966), p. 50. It is simply a matter of doing away with the relaxed or less strict branches of the mendicant orders, notably the Franciscan Conventuals. In fact the reform of monasticism and the establishment of new orders - the Theatines, the Capuchins, and later the Jesuits - had major support among the authors of the Consilium.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

I have to say how nice it is to have a thread on Anglicanism continue in somewhat civil discourse, rather than spiral into heated (or not so heated) insults and have to be closed.

The historic church references are a nice bonus.

 

[virgo]

Agreed! Everyone has been incredibly insightful and knowledgeable. Although we are coming from very different perspectives, the dialogue here has been very eye opening!

 

[commenter]

Agreed! Everyone has been incredibly insightful and knowledgeable. Although we are coming from very different perspectives, the dialogue here has been very eye opening!

Just curious, how does the Episcopal Church, or C of E today, regard its apologetics superstars of yesterday? I refer to the pre-Catholic writing of Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, and most important, C. S. Lewis?

I would assume they promoted these and similar apologists at the time their books were published. In recent years I think the TEC promoted the Chronicles of Narnia, but I can’t imagine them promoting his Apologetics work now, or the book “Orthodoxy” for instance, though individual Anglican/Episcopal subgroups would. To me it seems TEC itself moving away from apologetic or evangelistic type work at all, though I may be missing something.

Which living apologists would be most likely promoted today by Episcopalians and Anglicans?

(It really was a golden age for apologetics, especially in England for a few decades, both for Anglicans and Catholics. I knew very little of this heritage until I was pushing 40.)

 

[GKC]

Just curious, how does the Episcopal Church, or C of E today, regard its apologetics superstars of yesterday? I refer to the pre-Catholic writing of Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, and most important, C. S. Lewis?

I would assume they promoted these and similar apologists at the time their books were published. In recent years I think the TEC promoted the Chronicles of Narnia, but I can’t imagine them promoting his Apologetics work now, or the book “Orthodoxy” for instance, though individual Anglican/Episcopal subgroups would. To me it seems TEC itself moving away from apologetic or evangelistic type work at all, though I may be missing something.

Which living apologists would be most likely promoted today by Episcopalians and Anglicans?

(It really was a golden age for apologetics, especially in England for a few decades, both for Anglicans and Catholics. I knew very little of this heritage until I was pushing 40.)

I will speak as an individual.

I’ve systematically collected Lewis, Chesterton, Williams, Sayers,(and Belloc and Knox and Lunn and Dawson) for over 50 years. Got a ton of 'em. I’ve occasionally found a small selection of Lewis and more rarely, Sayers, in Episcopal flavored book stores. Our assistant priest runs a Lewis society at the Chapel my parish supports on the local university campus. One of my parish members is a world class authority on Sayers. I’ve heard one lecture on Williams, in my area. I’ve given one on Chesterton, and one on Lewis/Chesterton/Tolkien.

Other than that (which I could not resist, sitting here in front of over 60 feet of shelf space devoted to these folks), I dunno. Certainly, I run across articles and essays (and books) on these folk, mainly Lewis. But what part they play in contemporary Anglicanism, I couldn’t say. Indeed, what part apologetics, in any recognizable sense, does so is beyond my ken.

A note, though. Chesterton fits comfortably here, and he was formally still CoE when he wrote ORTHODOXY . But that was pretty much the point at which he decided he was going to Rome. Which he did, 13 years later.

Thanks for the setup; sorry this is not more responsive.

GKC

 

[Contarini]

Just curious, how does the Episcopal Church, or C of E today, regard its apologetics superstars of yesterday? I refer to the pre-Catholic writing of Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, and most important, C. S. Lewis?

I would assume they promoted these and similar apologists at the time their books were published. In recent years I think the TEC promoted the Chronicles of Narnia, but I can’t imagine them promoting his Apologetics work now, or the book “Orthodoxy” for instance, though individual Anglican/Episcopal subgroups would. To me it seems TEC itself moving away from apologetic or evangelistic type work at all, though I may be missing something.

Which living apologists would be most likely promoted today by Episcopalians and Anglicans?

(It really was a golden age for apologetics, especially in England for a few decades, both for Anglicans and Catholics. I knew very little of this heritage until I was pushing 40.)

Well, Anglicans are, as GKC would say, a motley crew. So it depends. And the American situation is different from the English one. My experience is that most Episcopalians think of Lewis as a pretty major figure, even if they are on the liberal side of things and maybe sneer at some of his ideas. He now is commemorated in the calendar (not quite the same thing as formal canonization in Catholicism, but the closest we get to it), though that was due to the efforts of my former bishop, Ed Little. Bishop Little, in fact, became a Christian as a college student largely through reading Lewis (he was a hardboiled atheist and devotee of Ayn Rand), and became an Anglican in great measure for the same reason. In fact, I’ve heard him say that he nearly backed out of becoming Episcopalian after hearing Bishop Pike speak to the confirmands (Bishop Pike was the flagship liberal bishop back in the 60s and 70s), and then decided that if C. S. Lewis was an Anglican he could become one too in spite of Bishop Pike. So among the more evangelical Episcopalians he is certainly a very big deal, and I’m sure that’s true among those who have left the Episcopal Church also.

In the British Isles the situation is different, I think. Certainly he’s known there–he finally got a plaque in Westminster Abbey two years ago (my wife and I and our kids attended–she was partially funded by her employers since the magazine she edits was planning an issue on the Inklings), and Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, preached an excellent sermon showing a deep appreciation of Lewis. But folks on that side of the pond in general seem to think of him more as a children’s writer than anything else. On our way back, we went through Dublin (transatlantic flights are cheaper to Dublin for some reason, and you can get quite reasonable flights to Britain from there) and attended the Anglican Eucharist at Trinity College. Afterwards my wife mentioned to one of the other people there that we had been to the C. S. Lewis commemoration and that she was covering it for a magazine on Christian history. The woman responded, “Oh, I didn’t know that Lewis was a Christian!” . . . .

Edwin

 

[commenter]

Thanks to both Contarini and GKC regarding the feedback on apologists. My own debt to C. S. Lewis is great. Sadly apologetics in the Catholic Church went almost into hibernation from the late 1950s till a few decades ago, and still being restored. The Anglican apologists of the last century are still worthy of review now, by Christians across the board.

Going on retreat this weekend, no posting on internet, so global forces of ignorance and confusion will run rampant till Monday, at least.

 

[GKC]

Thanks to both Contarini and GKC regarding the feedback on apologists. My own debt to C. S. Lewis is great. Sadly apologetics in the Catholic Church went almost into hibernation from the late 1950s till a few decades ago, and still being restored. The Anglican apologists of the last century are still worthy of review now, by Christians across the board.

Going on retreat this weekend, no posting on internet, so global forces of ignorance and confusion will run rampant till Monday, at least.

Arnold Lunn is a sadly neglected RC apologist, who did his best work in the first half of the 1900s. Though flawed in one odd particular, his work is well worth knowing.

GKC