The Reformation cut the English church away from Rome, and in doing so it destroyed any credibility so far as the apostolic succession was concerned. Despite the removal, sometimes by murder, of England’s Catholic bishops, it was still important to pretend that it could be ecclesiastical business as usual. The Virgin Mary had disappeared, but the Tudor monarchs were prayed for in the Prayer Book and they could replace the Queen of Heaven. Even today, the Anglican hierarchy remains one of the last places of refuge for those who take the royal family at all seriously.
Bishops really came into their own from the 16th century onwards in England because they were supposed to show that the CofE, though it had no pope, was still respectably antique ”“ and therefore worthy of obedience ”“ despite the loss of that Roman link. Fussiness about episcopacy is in fact Anglicanism’s implicit acknowledgment that it does not actually have the kind of historic authority it would like to have.
Greater honesty about itself should lead the Church of England to get rid of bishops altogether and rejoice in the freedom that comes with being a sect. But that would involve the abandonment not just of pretension but also of a career structure that means too much to too many Anglican minds.
Absurd, the primary function of a Bishop is to safe guard the faith and insure its correct transmission to future generations. If we didn’t have Bishops how could we insure that this would happen? I mean if Bishops didn’t defend the faith as received…..I mean how would one know…….That is…….If incorrect teaching was allowed in……What was the question again?
Link doesn’t work (neither succession- or article-wise)….
..laughing so hard at article, “nor” was missed.
Tis a tale told by an…signifying nothing.
Link now at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/16/women-bishops-church-of-england
Thanks – Link now fixed – Elf
The CofE has not relegated itself to a sect and it should treat itself that way. Bishops are a fair enough administration; they just shouldn’t be very important. The CofE has no credible head. The ABC, the pope lite, is clearly irrelevant now. And the notion of apostolic succession has never been more than a gambit, for it was long ago broken. Women bishops and homosexuals bishops and their boyfriends make a mockery of bishopification. Well, perhaps parody is a better word. This article merely points out the obvious.
What is worth noting is that nothing will happen except that there will be a wringing of hands, a calling of synods, calls for unity, a period of listening and fact gathering, an evaluation of votes, more meetings. Elsewhere I remarked how like the Bandarlog the Anglicans have become, talking and talking and doing nothing but throwing nuts from trees while the real hunters move below. Do you know how to spell impotent and spineless? Larry
Larry,
Dispensing with bishops, at least as we have known them, may be the only path left for those who are Classical Prayer Book Anglicans. Oliver Cromwell said “No King, No Bishop”, perhaps he was on to something?
“No bishop, no king”, is James I/VI, R M Bruton
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:w6DDwslVcX8J:en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_I_of_England+“no+bishop+no+king”&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Holy Scripture institutes the office of episkopos, Holy Tradition affirms it, and Holy Reason suggests (to me, at least) that congregationalism isn’t a good model for Anglican polity, so the office is important.
For me, the Apostolic Succession is unbroken spiritually. I don’t have evidence that it is intact physically, at least in the West, but I also don’t have evidence that it is not intact. In any case, the physical Anglican Apostolic Succession is as intact as that of the Roman Catholic Church, despite what the Bishop of Rome, or others, might think.
I’m less sure whether the office of Archbishop should be kept. In Anglican polity, that office would seem to have little authority and power over the clergy. In the Roman tradition, Archbishops and “Popes” have had great authority and power over the clergy, but they haven’t always used it very wisely.
Holy Reason? Why don’t you just say you got this direct from the Holy Spirit?