The talks manage to avoid the sin of navel-gazing: rather than focusing on Anglican peculiarities, the purpose of each is to see and to show how the Anglican tradition opens up onto a world much larger than itself, making them not just a good primer on Anglicanism but on Catholic Christianity as such.
The series begins with N.T. Wright, who with characteristic clarity and depth of learning gives not only an overview of the New Testament but also of how Anglicans have classically read and been formed by the Bible in their common life. Scripture, as reformers such as Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Cranmer held, is to be placed in the hands of the people and read in common, so as to knit together a people through deep immersion in the Scriptural story. This, Bishop Wright holds, is in fact at the heart of Anglican worship and life: the simple, daily, communal reading of the Bible, through which the Spirit forms us as a church and equips us for mission in the world.
It sounds as if this resource will be of great value to the ACNA, but will be largely ignored (or disparaged) by ECUSA.
I dunno — it appears that at least two of the topics are all about how, in order to be a True Anglican, one must stay in TEC. So maybe some of the TECans will love it. ; > )
Please remember that the speakers are not all in TEC nor much follow TEC’s daily life with blog-like attention. NT Wright, Jo Wells, Anthony Burton, Edith Humphrey, Josiah Idowu-Fearon, George Sumner, George Carey are all non-TEC; Radner is in Toronto and speaks of Thos Bray and Missionary movement from the CoE; Turner was a missionary in Uganda and his talk has nothing to do with TEC problems, etc. This project was not intended to be timebound by present struggles, but to offer a different vision. But I am repeating Jordon’s own comments in his review. The idea was to have a way to present good teaching from 11 speakers, for adult education slots, without the cost of bringing them in, on basic items of Christian believing and living. We hope to generate a third DVD on church growth, Christian Scripture, the Articles, select Anglican Divines, and other topics. We welcome your suggestions.
I would *love* one on the Anglican Divines, particularly Hooker.
It’s nice to see a robust defense of a communion that has contributed so much to the church universal. As Jordan said in his review, “forgetfulness” is what will doom Anglicanism. Who would want to see the demise of a community of believers that nurtured such folk as William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury and Dorothy Sayers and C.S. Lewis and Dame Cicely Saunders — not to mention the theologians and biblical scholars alluded to in the review as both subjects of and participants in the DVD?
“Dr. Turner, in his treatment of Christian ethics, allows that Anglican ethical perspectives (ranging from Hooker to Wesley to Joseph Fletcher) have historically been quite diverse. Nevertheless, Turner discerns a pattern grounded in the prayer book’s ordering of Anglican worship, wherein we are met time and again by God’s grace in the sacraments, joined together as a people by common prayer and worship, and formed daily by the Holy Scriptures. Ethics, seen this way, is not first of all about coming up with guiding “principles†or about solving difficult quandaries, but instead about how we are formed by God’s grace into a holy people through the worshiping practices of the Church.”
Truly Christian “ethics,” better stated as Christian morality, are based upon the bedrock of God’s Word as revealed through the prophets, by Jesus and by the apostles as inspired by the Holy Spirit.
These “ethics” include such areas of human behavior and thought as the ‘sanctity of human life,’ and ‘human sexuality.’
It is in these areas that some of the greatest impetus toward schism is now occurring in the Anglican Communion.
Tell me, outside of the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, how we Anglicans who find others who call themselves Anglican, but who are seriously deficient/lacking in traditional/historical Christian “ethics” and are defiantly pushing schism upon the Anglican Communion, are going to resolve the issues that are dividing us “…through the worshiping practices of the Church.”
It is through traditional/orthodox Episcopalians gathering together for worship with revisioinist Episcopalians while strenouously trying to avoid the controversy that can come from defending “…the Faith once delivered…” that has permitted the revisionists to indoctrinate and take over ECUSA over the past 50 to 70 years.
Thanks, Sarah, for your feedback. I agree. And we have some excellent teachers out there to put this before a congregation in clear and well researched ways.
I found Dean Turner’s piece on ethics and Bishop Burton’s on Anglican liturgy to be especially good when I heard them in Houston last year. Looking forward to purchasing the series as soon as I can requisition the funding . . . .
Bruce Robison
Does Turner hold up Joseph Fletcher’s work as a model of Christian ethics?