Wasn’t Newman a so called “high” Chuch Anglican?
Yes. And when he distinguishes “Anglicanism” from “Protestantism” in the
Essay he clearly means “Oxford-Movement high-church Anglicanism” by “Anglicanism,” since the figure he cites as representing Protestantism, Chillingworth, was also an Anglican.
But in the past century or two the kind of careful, thoughtful, respectful inquiry into the early Church that characterized the Oxford Movement has become more common in Protestantism as a whole, although these broader “neo-patristic” folks continue to see themselves as Protestants. Philip Schaff and John Nevin, in Newman’s own day, were pioneers of this broader movement.
When Newman was talking about Anglicanism, as a “particular form of Protestantism”, did he make that specific distinction you’re making and eliminate the “high” Church as a form of protestantism?
I thought we have already established that Newman’s terminology appears to have changed in those five years. I am addressing specifically the use of Newman’s famous saying about history and Protestantism from the
Essay, and I’m pointing out that in that immediate context he was not talking about the kind of Anglicanism he had been professing up to that point (he was clearing the decks for the main argument of the Essay, which was that this kind of “patristic reconstruction” was bound to fail because it didn’t take development seriously), and further that his sweeping dismissal of “Protestantism” (in that immediate context) does not apply to similar neo-patristic movements within other forms of Protestantism.
If he made such a distinction, why then didn’t he stay put. Why instead did he leave Anglicanism, to be received into the Catholic Church?
That is what the main body of the
Essay explains. The passage you and many other Catholic fixate on occurs very early, and is a rather cavalier dismissal of what Newman would have seen as mainstream Protestantism in his day, as summed up in Chillingworth’s phrase “the Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.” (Roughly, think of the kind of religion professed by someone like James White today. And Newman’s dictum applies to White. White appeals to pre-Reformation history all the time, but he does so almost exclusively in negative terms, to show that there is too much diversity and disagreement in the early Church to support the “claims of Rome.”)
Once Newman has gotten “Protestantism” out of the way, he can get down to his main argument, which is that the kind of “pristine Catholicism” he and his Oxford colleagues had tried to reconstruct is always going to be an artificial sort of thing, because real Catholicism has always been a living, growing entity that develops in response to new challenges.
Did those Baptists come back to the Catholic Church?
No (not to my knowledge–a number of people I knew at Duke have become Catholic and I haven’t kept in touch with all of them–one of the Methodists who was part of that group has told me recently that he, like me, keeps thinking about becoming Catholic, and another one, while serving as the editor of Christian Century, spoke openly of going over to St. John Cantius for Adoration, which got him a teasing mention in
First Things’ “The Public Square”). And that’s my point. They do not represent what Newman, in the narrow context of the
Essay, is calling “Protestantism.”
You can’t take Newman’s description of “Protestantism” and apply it broadly to everyone who is a Protestant today. I don’t think it really applied to everyone who was a Protestant in 1845, but it applied a lot more broadly than it does today. But it was an accurate, telling criticism of a particular kind of Protestantism, which remains extremely popular in English-speaking countries, particularly the U.S.
but you’re describing indifferentism. Bouncing around within protestantism is still remaining protestant.
That has nothing to do with “indifferentism.”
The statements
- “to be deep in history…”
- "Anglicans are a “particular form of Protestantism”
are true statements.
Not together, they aren’t. And Newman did not, in fact, make them together.
In fact, it’s not just Anglicans who may be “deep in history” without becoming Catholic. I know plenty of people of various Protestant traditions who are very deep in history and feel no desire to become Catholic.
**ALL **swatches of protestantim
Nope. It just isn’t. This is where you’re getting in trouble. You’re making the absurd claim that Protestants can’t possibly believe in the Real Presence because Newman said they didn’t and Newman would know. But Newman knew what early-19th-century Evangelical Anglicanism was like (that’s primarily what he means by “Protestantism”).
Then say it as it is. Newmans dictum has become MORE compelling.
No. Again, you are showing that you do not understand the argument of the
Essay. The dictum about “Protestantism” is early on and is not his main argument.
Edwin
