Ask an Anglican/Episcopalian

[jimkhong]

I’m not a relativist, and at its core neither is the Church of England, but that doesn’t mean we can’t, or shouldn’t, recognise the genuine, true faith of those with whom we are not yet in full communion. There have, of course, been times where Anglican and RC martyrs have died for the Gospel together, e.g. in Uganda.

No need to apologise for being a relativist, a label that Benedict’s curial papacy had turned into a dirty word. Another word for a relativist is ‘being tolerant’.

I agree with you, and in my country, the various Churches have grown closer together and united against the growing religious intolerence engendered by government politicians. We have a lot in common, much more than we have differences. Differences which to the rest of the world would seen trivial. No reason why we cannot celebrate our unity and common faith & heritage.

Still, to share bread at the same table would require more than common faith & heritage. It requires having the same faith and identity. For a church who would not canonise Origen & Tertulian or share communion with the valid sacraments of a valid Orthodox priesthood, that signifies a depth of commonality that is beyond (from our perspective) the shallower but broader embrace of an Anglican.

 

[jimkhong]

Our conservative Bishop of our diocese from Oklahoma stated it so beautiful on Sunday. In his southern accent…“We all seek the Love of God and salvation through Christ. When we encounter those that do not believe the same as us, we should use our mouths to kiss them rather than hurting them.(in our case our fingers lol) We should celebrate what we have in common, Jesus Christ, and pray for what we differ on. If two Christians cannot get along, then how do we expect our non Christian brothers and sisters to set down with us?”

wise man, your bishop.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Interesting guy. Non-religious but able to articulate on behalf of Anglicans. :clapping: (no, not being sarcarstic here). Like GKC said, …

I find it very English, actuallyt: no personal theological opinion but still wants the Church of England to be the national church because that is part and parcel of being English.:juggle:

You are very kind - too kind. Your second paragraph is quite accurate, except for the bit about not having a personal theological opinion. But I wipe my feet before I enter here.

 

[Novocastrian]

No need to apologise for being a relativist, a label that Benedict’s curial papacy had turned into a dirty word. Another word for a relativist is ‘being tolerant’.

I agree with you, and in my country, the various Churches have grown closer together and united against the growing religious intolerence engendered by government politicians. We have a lot in common, much more than we have differences. Differences which to the rest of the world would seen trivial. No reason why we cannot celebrate our unity and common faith & heritage.

Still, to share bread at the same table would require more than common faith & heritage. It requires having the same faith and identity. For a church who would not canonise Origen & Tertulian or share communion with the valid sacraments of a valid Orthodox priesthood, that signifies a depth of commonality that is beyond (from our perspective) the shallower but broader embrace of an Anglican.

I’m actually a huge fan of Benedict, and think that it’s a bit far to characterise his papacy as merely ‘curial’. I fully agree with his critique of relativism, I just wouldn’t respond to it in the same way he does - by renewed emphasis on the Roman pontiff’s teaching authority. I just think that the Faith which stands against relativism demands our de fide assent to fewer truths that he does. Because of this, it’s a bit easier to see commonality between Canterbury and Rome, etc.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Interesting guy. Non-religious but able to articulate on behalf of Anglicans. :clapping: (no, not being sarcarstic here). Like GKC said, …

I find it very English, actuallyt: no personal theological opinion but still wants the Church of England to be the national church because that is part and parcel of being English.:juggle:

Sorry, this is getting a bit narcissistic, but I would add that the CofE is not just … what you said! … but also so intertwined with our society, especially in rural areas like the one I am lucky enough to live in, that pulling it out of play like a tablecloth in the magic trick would (in the absence of magic) get fairly close to disabling much of civil life. I know that’s not the case with TEC, or with Anglican churches elsewhere, but it is true, I think, of the CofE. So I do have a personal interest in how this plays out.

 

[jimkhong]

Sorry, this is getting a bit narcissistic, but I would add that the CofE is not just … what you said! … but also so intertwined with our society, especially in rural areas like the one I am lucky enough to live in, that pulling it out of play like a tablecloth in the magic trick would (in the absence of magic) get fairly close to disabling much of civil life. I know that’s not the case with TEC, or with Anglican churches elsewhere, but it is true, I think, of the CofE. So I do have a personal interest in how this plays out.

It is, isn’t it? Walking through an Anglican cathedral sometimes feel like walking through an indoor Cenotaph than a house of worship. It is so much a fabric of English identity.

I haven’t spent that much time in rural England (so little of it left) but it is hard to imagine Victorian novels without that country pastor!

As such, I find it hard to talk about CoE theology and ecclesiology without talking about English culture and identity.

 

[jimkhong]

I’m actually a huge fan of Benedict, and think that it’s a bit far to characterise his papacy as merely ‘curial’. I fully agree with his critique of relativism, I just wouldn’t respond to it in the same way he does - by renewed emphasis on the Roman pontiff’s teaching authority. I just think that the Faith which stands against relativism demands our de fide assent to fewer truths that he does. Because of this, it’s a bit easier to see commonality between Canterbury and Rome, etc.

I think that would really characterise the difference between Anglicanism and Romanist Catholicism. The fact that Canterbury looks to ‘fewer truths’ than Rome to define being in communion.

This point is pertinent as the Catholic church is probably about to enter the same stormy waters that the Anglican Communion has been travelling of late.

Today, one can see the backlash against Curial control (this time, I am using it intentionally and consiously) commonplace since Trent, with the German bishops leading the way (refusal to use the Curial-mandated German translation of the mass which the English-speaking bishops conceded two years ago; refusal to back down over CDW’s attempt to close the debate on communion for divorcees). Basically, the debate is finally public between those who wishes to see a more pastorally-relevant Church and those who wishes for a more doctrinally-pure and historically-faithful Church.

The question is how we can keep the Church together. Looking across at the Anglican Communion, it has managed to keep together (other than the odd ACNA here and there) despite the strain between the liberals on one hand and the High Church & Evangelicals on the other hand. Is there something there we can learn?

I see some differences between the Anglican and Catholic experience to start off with. The Anglican debate largely takes place within the national churches, with the TEC being on the liberal wing (though, of course, not monolithic) while the African bishops are on the conservative wing. The faultline (for want of a better word) now is between the sister churches rather than within those churches. By the time the debate within the national churches is (more or less) resolved, the national churches realised that they are getting very far apart. I think it took much of Carey’s skills to keep the African bishops from breaking away after TEC elected its new PB.

There are no national churches in Catholicism. The faultline is between the Curia (and traditionalists all over the Church) who have been used to being in control in the last two papacies and the progressives who have acted as the loyal opposition in the last three decades. Can we have a debate on where to turn this hugely unwieldy barque of Peter and ‘yet the net did not brea’? (OK, I am mixing up my metaphors here). Or do we ultimately need to (like the Anglicans) narrow down the truths we agree on so as to stay together.

The differences in the Catholic Church is also more complex as the issues of inculturation, differences in liturgies and subsidiarity are now coming to the fore, which was already worked out in Anglicanism in the 20th century. On top of that, there are the differences between the religious orders and the Vatican and the experience of the Eastern Churches. Would the Anglican experience be able to inform the decisions the Catholic Church have to make in the coming years?

Something to think about.

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

I think most people believe that Henry VIII is to Anglicanism what Martin Luther is to Lutheranism – and most people believe that Martin Luther is to Lutheranism what Pope Leo X is to Roman Catholicism.

:ehh:

The first part is true, and not without reason. They are wrong in the conclusion, but Henry, Like Luther, did start the ball rolling…downhill, as it were. Then things rapidly got out of hand for both of them.

Your second part is doubtful since most Catholics today don’t know who Leo X was, a, and b, he was an orthodox Catholic. In that context we might say ‘what the Gospel is to…Catholicism.’

 

[Picky_Picky]

It is, isn’t it? Walking through an Anglican cathedral sometimes feel like walking through an indoor Cenotaph than a house of worship. It is so much a fabric of English identity.

I haven’t spent that much time in rural England (so little of it left) but it is hard to imagine Victorian novels without that country pastor!

As such, I find it hard to talk about CoE theology and ecclesiology without talking about English culture and identity.

I think Fielding is most moving on the subject of the country pastor, but yes, I know what you mean about the Victorians. Are you a Trollopean?

And, at the risk of sounding like the English Tourist Board, or whatever they call it now, there is plenty of it left! Come over and spend lots and lots of money! Who cares if we don’t understand how to do dry bedding and edible breakfasts? Visit Novocastrian and the wonders of Durham! The Holy Isle! Newcastle Brown! You know it makes sense.

 

[jimkhong]

I think Fielding is most moving on the subject of the country pastor, but yes, I know what you mean about the Victorians. Are you a Trollopean?

And, at the risk of sounding like the English Tourist Board, or whatever they call it now, there is plenty of it left! Come over and spend lots and lots of money! Who cares if we don’t understand how to do dry bedding and edible breakfasts? Visit Novocastrian and the wonders of Durham! The Holy Isle! Newcastle Brown! You know it makes sense.

No, I never Trolloped

Gosh!! How do you like living in Disneyland? Anyway, is it safe to go to Durham? David Jenkins still around?

 

[Picky_Picky]

No, I never Trolloped

Gosh!! How do you like living in Disneyland? Anyway, is it safe to go to Durham? David Jenkins still around?

Disneyland? Have a care! Durham is quite safe. The splendidly naive but erudite Dr Jenkins must be in his 90s by now and you are quite safe from being threatened by him. Just imagine, though: Durham! St Cuthbert! Just a few miles from Bede himself! Or come down my way and visit the tiny chapels of the Cornish saints and the churches of Aldhelm. And you would, in any case, be well advised to Trollope. Bring money.

 

[GKC]

These are really questions for the grown-ups, but I will hazard an attempt at them so they don’t get lost up-thread. Taking them the wrong way round, I think the answer to your last question is “yes”, although someone more familiar with the Episcopal Church might perhaps be best to comment on that and on your penultimate sentence; certainly Anglicans believe that there is One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and that they are part of it. Your first question I will leave to my betters (although to move for a moment from TEC to the CofE, I suppose the average person in a CofE pew would say that either interpretation is possible and that, without wishing any offence, neither leads them to believe the claims of infallibility or universal jurisdiction that now are attached to the office of the Bishop of Rome).

Not to extend the narcissistic moment, but you, again, are in the right. Always recalling that one cannot successfully generalize about Anglicans, generally. Whatever the meaning of the first, it is open to what, precisely it might mean, in Petrine power, perquisites, position, and authority. That the historic episcopate is, of necessity, mediated through his office, and subordinate to it, is probably out of bounds, though.

And not to let my manners escape me, jimkhong is one whose posts I have learned to look forward to. There are a number of such in this thread.

GKC

 

[GKC]

I think that would really characterise the difference between Anglicanism and Romanist Catholicism. The fact that Canterbury looks to ‘fewer truths’ than Rome to define being in communion.

This point is pertinent as the Catholic church is probably about to enter the same stormy waters that the Anglican Communion has been travelling of late.

Today, one can see the backlash against Curial control (this time, I am using it intentionally and consiously) commonplace since Trent, with the German bishops leading the way (refusal to use the Curial-mandated German translation of the mass which the English-speaking bishops conceded two years ago; refusal to back down over CDW’s attempt to close the debate on communion for divorcees). Basically, the debate is finally public between those who wishes to see a more pastorally-relevant Church and those who wishes for a more doctrinally-pure and historically-faithful Church.

The question is how we can keep the Church together. Looking across at the Anglican Communion, it has managed to keep together (other than the odd ACNA here and there) despite the strain between the liberals on one hand and the High Church & Evangelicals on the other hand. Is there something there we can learn?

I see some differences between the Anglican and Catholic experience to start off with. The Anglican debate largely takes place within the national churches, with the TEC being on the liberal wing (though, of course, not monolithic) while the African bishops are on the conservative wing. The faultline (for want of a better word) now is between the sister churches rather than within those churches. By the time the debate within the national churches is (more or less) resolved, the national churches realised that they are getting very far apart. I think it took much of Carey’s skills to keep the African bishops from breaking away after TEC elected its new PB.

There are no national churches in Catholicism. The faultline is between the Curia (and traditionalists all over the Church) who have been used to being in control in the last two papacies and the progressives who have acted as the loyal opposition in the last three decades. Can we have a debate on where to turn this hugely unwieldy barque of Peter and ‘yet the net did not brea’? (OK, I am mixing up my metaphors here). Or do we ultimately need to (like the Anglicans) narrow down the truths we agree on so as to stay together.

The differences in the Catholic Church is also more complex as the issues of inculturation, differences in liturgies and subsidiarity are now coming to the fore, which was already worked out in Anglicanism in the 20th century. On top of that, there are the differences between the religious orders and the Vatican and the experience of the Eastern Churches. Would the Anglican experience be able to inform the decisions the Catholic Church have to make in the coming years?

Something to think about.

This is a thought provoking post. Not wishing to move it off the RCC emphasis, the problem with the Anglicans, in the figures of speech you are using seems to me to be whether one can narrow down the range of essential truths as drastically as would be required to look at the differences in contemporary Anglicanism as merely an extension of the historic range of opinion between high and low church, and reformed and Anglo-Catholic, as the Elizabethan compromise had come to be worked out, say 50 years ago, and still have an institution that is recognizably the same Church, and not merely 2 or more Churches under a single name. For one blatant example, for those who hold to the traditional concept of the validity of orders, and how that is measured, and the relationship between that sacrament and the sacraments dependent on it, and the essential role of valid sacraments to define a true Church, there is a gulf in the grasp of what is going on, what is minimally essential to a “Church”, that seems to me insuperable.The attempt to work around it in the CoE, through the Episcopal visitors, was clumsy, ad hoc and obviously a reflection of impaired communion, within a single Church. I look to it to be functionally abandoned, in the New World opening now in the CoE. I find the chasms opened and opening in TEC to be of even more depth and breadth.

Hence, I am of the Continuum. For as long as it is viable.

GKC

 

[GKC]

I think Fielding is most moving on the subject of the country pastor, but yes, I know what you mean about the Victorians. Are you a Trollopean?

And, at the risk of sounding like the English Tourist Board, or whatever they call it now, there is plenty of it left! Come over and spend lots and lots of money! Who cares if we don’t understand how to do dry bedding and edible breakfasts? Visit Novocastrian and the wonders of Durham! The Holy Isle! Newcastle Brown! You know it makes sense.

Used to have an acrylic painting of Durham Cathedral over the mantel. Still have Newcastle Brown in the frig. And I have Trolloped through rambles in Barsetshire, in the past.

GKC

 

[Contarini]

In the first place I said, ‘leading the TEC into apostasy.’ I didn’t say she got there yet.

You surely must be up to date with her antics. The woman has, as far as I can see, made the homosexual agenda pretty close to doctrine. Whole diocese have left the TEC because of her and numerous parishes, which she’s spending millions suing out of their property.

Was it KJS who shot down the zen practitioner and the Muslim? I’m not sure about that.

No, of course it wasn’t. That was my point about her not “owning” the Episcopal Church.

One of the most disturbing trends of her tenure as PB has indeed been an attempt to strengthen her office, and the central structures of TEC generally.

It is certainly not true, however, that accepting revisionist views on homosexuality is “doctrine” in TEC. My own bishop, for instance, does not allow the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese, and as far as I know he and other such bishops have come under no pressure to change their position. That being said, we (the remaining “conservatives,” or what ten years ago would have been regarded as centrists) have serious concerns about how long this tolerance will last, given the history with regard to women’s ordination.

I think the “niche” for TEC in the future will be a small denomination that recruits itself from aesthetically inclined, intellectual, spiritually restless young people both from non-religious backgrounds and from other churches, and that maintains a broad, basic commitment to the Creeds combined with social/political liberalism, with more extreme forms of theological liberalism tolerated but not dominant.

I suspect that after KJS there will be pressure to choose a PB who reflects a relatively more “conservative” position than she does, or at least who is more generous toward conservatives. But I don’t expect that there will ever again be a PB who holds to a traditional view on homosexuality, and within forty or fifty years I expect that there won’t be any bishops who do either.

I may be wrong on any number of these points. Prognostication is risky. My own bishop has some cautious optimism about the possibility of “seeding” TEC with more orthodox clergy, given that on the whole the more orthodox dioceses (like our own) have larger numbers of people entering the priesthood. (We are a tiny diocese even by Episcopal standards, but we have quite a few folks discerning vocations to the priesthood and diaconate, so that on the whole we export clergy.) And it’s also possible that you are right and that within a generation TEC will be indistinguishable from Unitarianism. But we certainly aren’t there yet, and from what I know of younger clergy (not just in my own diocese) I don’t see it happening in the foreseeable future.

I am moving to Kentucky next year and do not intend to transfer my membership to an Episcopal congregation there. This is primarily for ecclesiological reasons, although my perception that TEC is irrevocably committed to positions on sexuality that I am not convinced are orthodox certainly sharpens the ecclesiological dilemma, as does the current PB’s apparent belief that TEC is a “church” in a theologically meaningful sense. (I suspect that this may be her most permanent and devastating legacy, even if, as I hope, later PB’s express this conviction in a less high-handed way.)

Edwin

 

[GKC]

No, of course it wasn’t. That was my point about her not “owning” the Episcopal Church.

One of the most disturbing trends of her tenure as PB has indeed been an attempt to strengthen her office, and the central structures of TEC generally.

It is certainly not true, however, that accepting revisionist views on homosexuality is “doctrine” in TEC. My own bishop, for instance, does not allow the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese, and as far as I know he and other such bishops have come under no pressure to change their position. That being said, we (the remaining “conservatives,” or what ten years ago would have been regarded as centrists) have serious concerns about how long this tolerance will last, given the history with regard to women’s ordination.

I think the “niche” for TEC in the future will be a small denomination that recruits itself from aesthetically inclined, intellectual, spiritually restless young people both from non-religious backgrounds and from other churches, and that maintains a broad, basic commitment to the Creeds combined with social/political liberalism, with more extreme forms of theological liberalism tolerated but not dominant.

I suspect that after KJS there will be pressure to choose a PB who reflects a relatively more “conservative” position than she does, or at least who is more generous toward conservatives. But I don’t expect that there will ever again be a PB who holds to a traditional view on homosexuality, and within forty or fifty years I expect that there won’t be any bishops who do either.

I may be wrong on any number of these points. Prognostication is risky. My own bishop has some cautious optimism about the possibility of “seeding” TEC with more orthodox clergy, given that on the whole the more orthodox dioceses (like our own) have larger numbers of people entering the priesthood. (We are a tiny diocese even by Episcopal standards, but we have quite a few folks discerning vocations to the priesthood and diaconate, so that on the whole we export clergy.) And it’s also possible that you are right and that within a generation TEC will be indistinguishable from Unitarianism. But we certainly aren’t there yet, and from what I know of younger clergy (not just in my own diocese) I don’t see it happening in the foreseeable future.

I am moving to Kentucky next year and do not intend to transfer my membership to an Episcopal congregation there. This is primarily for ecclesiological reasons, although my perception that TEC is irrevocably committed to positions on sexuality that I am not convinced are orthodox certainly sharpens the ecclesiological dilemma, as does the current PB’s apparent belief that TEC is a “church” in a theologically meaningful sense. (I suspect that this may be her most permanent and devastating legacy, even if, as I hope, later PB’s express this conviction in a less high-handed way.)

Edwin

Agreed. Among her most devastating legacies is likely to be that move to transform TEC polity, establish the role of the PB as a form of Archbishopric, subordinate the dioceses to that office, and rule. It is not for naught that she often carries a metropolitan crozier. And none can call that power to account.

GKC

 

[Picky_Picky]

This is a thought provoking post. Not wishing to move it off the RCC emphasis, the problem with the Anglicans, in the figures of speech you are using seems to me to be whether one can narrow down the range of essential truths as drastically as would be required to look at the differences in contemporary Anglicanism as merely an extension of the historic range of opinion between high and low church, and reformed and Anglo-Catholic, as the Elizabethan compromise had come to be worked out, say 50 years ago, and still have an institution that is recognizably the same Church, and not merely 2 or more Churches under a single name. For one blatant example, for those who hold to the traditional concept of the validity of orders, and how that is measured, and the relationship between that sacrament and the sacraments dependent on it, and the essential role of valid sacraments to define a true Church, there is a gulf in the grasp of what is going on, what is minimally essential to a “Church”, that seems to me insuperable.The attempt to work around it in the CoE, through the Episcopal visitors, was clumsy, ad hoc and obviously a reflection of impaired communion, within a single Church. I look to it to be functionally abandoned, in the New World opening now in the CoE. I find the chasms opened and opening in TEC to be of even more depth and breadth.

Hence, I am of the Continuum. For as long as it is viable.

GKC

I’m now going to traipse in for once without wiping my feet, and the result will no doubt be both clumsy and trite. I hope at least it won’t be taken as insulting. I apologise in advance.

You remember how Tolkien talked about creation and sub-creation. Can I trespass by using that as an analogy? Here is the “created” Christian story: Jesus of Nazareth is born both man and God, Son of the Father. He preaches, cures, teaches love and forgiveness. He is taken and killed, and in so doing takes punishment for the sins of mankind. He is resurrected to the astonishment of his followers. He promises life eternal to those who believe in him. (Forgive me for any infelicities there.) That is the “creation”.

The “creation” is God’s work. The “sub-creation” is of course man’s. On that framework of “creation” man sub-creates his own amazing complexity of belief: about the sacraments, about soteriology, about the Trinity and the nature of God, about ecclesiology and the nature and gender of priesthood, and so on. They may be founded in Scripture or in the teachings of the early Church, but they are certainly developed in their full, detailed, absolutely assured flowering by man. Man extends the range of what belief is necessary for a person to achieve life eternal: not just belief in the story of “creation”, but belief in all the baggage of “sub-creation”, too.

These forums are a weird place – far from the beliefs of ordinary parishioners, I suspect. Full of tiny arguments about what this or that Christian Father said about this or that; its interpretation, its refutation. How many candles sit where. Just what can I conjure up to explain Mary? Can I use what you are saying today to make you look silly for what you said yesterday? And all the big words of theology that most ordinary Christians would shake their heads at. What is the purpose of all that? Its main purpose seems to be to keep the Church divided. Its main expression seems to be an absence of love.

At any rate, this dirty-footed outsider reckons, all that sub-creation ain’t gonna bring you the united church you say you have been told to achieve.

 

[GKC]

I’m now going to traipse in for once without wiping my feet, and the result will no doubt be both clumsy and trite. I hope at least it won’t be taken as insulting. I apologise in advance.

You remember how Tolkien talked about creation and sub-creation. Can I trespass by using that as an analogy? Here is the “created” Christian story: Jesus of Nazareth is born both man and God, Son of the Father. He preaches, cures, teaches love and forgiveness. He is taken and killed, and in so doing takes punishment for the sins of mankind. He is resurrected to the astonishment of his followers. He promises life eternal to those who believe in him. (Forgive me for any infelicities there.) That is the “creation”.

The “creation” is God’s work. The “sub-creation” is of course man’s. On that framework of “creation” man creates his own amazing complexity of belief: about the sacraments, about soteriology, about the Trinity and the nature of God, about ecclesiology and the nature and gender of priesthood, and so on. They may be founded in Scripture or in the teachings of the early Church, but they are certainly developed in their full, detailed, absolutely assured flowering by man. Man extends the range of what belief is necessary for a person to achieve life eternal: not just belief in the story of “creation”, but belief in all the baggage of “sub-creation”, too.

These forums are a weird place – far from the beliefs of ordinary parishioners, I suspect. Full of tiny arguments about what this or that Christian Father said about this or that; its interpretation, its refutation. How many candles sit where. Just what can I conjure up to explain Mary? Can I use what you are saying today to make you look silly for what you said yesterday? And all the big words of theology that most ordinary Christians would shake their heads at. What is the purpose of all that? Its main purpose seems to be to keep the Church divided. Its main expression seems to be an absence of love.

At any rate, this dirty-footed outsider reckons, all that sub-creation ain’t gonna bring you the united church you say you have been told to achieve.

Yep. Does seem to be beyond us. Unless all fall into line with my interpretation. And even those with most visible a claim to realize that don’t seem to be able to do so.

Perhaps there is a fault in the raw material. Some basic flaw, maybe. Almost as if something had gone wrong, way back when.

GKC

 

[Picky_Picky]

Yep. Does seem to be beyond us. Unless all fall into line with my interpretation. And even those with most visible a claim to realize that don’t seem to be able to do so.

Perhaps there is a fault in the raw material. Some basic flaw, maybe. Almost as if something had gone wrong, way back when.

GKC

Ah.

 

[GKC]

Ah.

Have you read Chesterton’s THE SURPRISE?

GKC