[Greetings, JimO,
You: “Thanks for the reply and the information on Henry (Hank? I like that). I really do try to avoid passing on speculation and misinformation, but I sometimes get carried away on these forums.”
Hank? you mean ol’ Horny and Homicidal Hank and his Hormones? We Anglicans take Henry lightly, at a distance of 450 years. Not an altogether admirable character, but an interesting one. Who got his delicate parts caught squarely in a crack in history. I often and strongly recommend Scarisbrick’s bio of him. It is superb, and gives a great deal of info on the annulment process as she was worked, back then. Not overly pro-Henry, either.
You’re welcome and that’s ok, though I don’t see anythng particularly egregious in your post. I know I get carried away, too sometimes. That’s one reason why I’m a book collector, of pathological proportions. I need to have my opinions backed up, as much as I can. Makes me feel safer.
You: “Okay, even if Hank had a legitimate case for an annulment, or even if, for the sake of argument, there was corruption in the annulment process within the Church (we all know that the Church - the whole Body of Christ - is filled with sinners), that doesn’t confer the authority to a king or even a group of Bishops to divide the Body of Christ.”
It was an argueable case, that was not met on the merits. but turned on political factors. And that also happened a lot. This time it happened to the King of England. Who was in the position to do something about it.
You: “That is my concern. Christ made no provision to divide His Church. On the contrary, His prayer of unity to the Father is for all of us to be one as He and the Father are One (John 17:9-19). A lot of people miss the significance of that prayer. He and the Father are One in Being. They are Oneness defined and that Oneness includes the element of obedience of Son to Father. Thus, Christ made no provision whatsoever for division. Paul himself criticizes the Corinthians for claiming allegence to him or Silas or Cephas (I Cor. 1:10-15) and asks rhetorically if the Body of Christ is divided. Some claim that all Christians are one in Christ. That is simply not true and a way of dismissing Christ’s prayer.”
In general, I agee with you. What you have now is schism. But to an Anglican, it’s schism on both sides. Which is a gentler judgement than what I think you would get from the other Branch of the Church, the Orthodox.
What happened then, both wih Henry and (mutatis mutandis), with Luther,or Calvin, or the Continental reformers in general (different breed of cat from what Henry was up to), was that there was a collision (inevitable) between the Church,as then structured and functioning, and the emergence of nationlism. What Henry did, in taking the Church in England private, was a difference in degree, not in kind, of a process that had been on going in England for +/- 300 years; the increasing independence of the ruling class (monarchy, at the time) from *any control from outside the realm. History is complicated, and to see what I mean, you would have to go back at least to Henry II, in the 12th century. Acts of Parliment and Royal decrees limiting and abolishing Papal and Church perogatives were numerous (Council of Westminister, Council of Clarendon, First Statute of Winchester, Statute of Mortmain, the Writ,
*Circumspecte agatis *, the Statue of Carlise, and the double Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, for example.). Had Henry produced a regiment of legtimate male heirs, with Catherine, eventually, some sort of break would have come.
You: "Christ gave His authority over to the Apostles, and, just like the Apostles, the Church has been imperfect from the beginning. If error was a reason to divide the Church, then Christ would have rejected Peter for his denial. Like our own bodies, the Church is the Church, with all its warts and scars. You can’t cut the arm off and have it become the Body. That is why the image of a body is given to us. So, for one denomination to say to another “We are both part of the Body” is wrong. One is the Body, the other is a severed part.
For me, in spite of the warts on the Body, it all comes down to authority."
This is well said. For Anglicans, esp. Anglo-Catholics, the situation is a sad thing. We pray that it might be ended. But for Anglicans, the issue is the proper role and scope of the Papacy. As for the Orthodox, the issue is one that prevents us from rejoining. I see no sign there will be any progress.
GKC
