(The writer is a laywoman now in the Orthodox Church–KSH).
I hesitate to write on this subject because I’m no longer in the Anglican Communion. However, what I write has been on my mind and heart for some time and I hope that it will be received as helpful criticism. I recognize that these are critical days for Anglicans in North America and I don’t wish either to offend or to stir trouble. I hope that this might encourage continued conversation about Anglican identity.
I worship each Sunday with other former Anglicans who have found their way to Orthodoxy and we discuss our impressions of what seems to be happening in Anglicanism in this country.
Exactly! And that is true, it seems to me, not only for the “new Anglicanism” but for many in the “old” Episcopal Church who, somehow, see Evangelicalism as a way to be Episcopal. Not for me, thank you very much.
One of the signal differences, it seems to me, between Evangelicals and Catholics is that the former believe that the nature and number, the origin and efficacy of the sacraments are secondary or even tertiary questions in Christian faith and life, while Catholics hold these questions to be primary because the sacraments are the ordinary means of grace for our justification and sanctification. Get the sacraments wrong, Catholics hold, and you’ll get the Gospel wrong.
This being the case, the truce which has been called on the question of women in the priesthood as a condition for bringing into being the new Anglican bodies in North America seems to me more than a bit like the truce over slavery that was required to bring the United States of American into being. But the latter truce could not hold, and neither can the former. Eventually, the disagreement must be sorted out, and that almost certainly means that the battle must be joined. And when that happens, then the great gulf between Evangelicals and Catholics on the nature and number, the origin and efficacy of the sacraments will once again be a church-dividing gulf.
That seems to me to be the fatal flaw in all present efforts to conjure up new Anglican jurisdictions from the wreckage of the Episcopal Church. Alice Linsley’s impressions only verify my conviction.
Before Evangelical Anglicanism is thrown under the bus further, I would like to point out that this type of Anglicanism is extremely gifted at bridging the gap b/t historic faith and contemporary culture, such as comfort in use of modern idiom in worship and teaching, use of technology in worship and evangelism, etc… On the other hand, my impression is that Orthodoxy has a difficult time doing this. If they did not, then why do icons, although beautiful and prayerful, look like they should be in museums? Why do most Orthodox groups still use foreign languages liturgies in worship? (and may i even add why do some Anglicans use 500 year old + English? Does God really require that or is an honest heart clothed in words from Hip-Hop culture sufficient?) I have had thoughts that possibly the Saints in icons might be clothed in gap khakis instead of some ancient robe and that stained glass needs to be replaced with LCD and Plasma screens with computer generated religious art. Let’s be honest. Our predecessors were fine with using new forms of language, art, and culture in worship, architecture, etc…Because they believed Our faith is living and breathing. Is it not? Jesus is resurrected and alive today, is He not? The Holy Spirit has been poured out and empowers the Church today, is He not? Can I get an Amen?
Thinking about the various traditions (East, West, Reformed) and expressions (catholic, evangelical, charismatic) of the Church, these Scriptures come to mind…
Matthew 18:20 – “Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I AM among them.”
Romans 2:28-29 – “For no one is a Jew (Christian) who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew (Christian) is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.”
Galatians 6:15 – “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”
Colossians 3:11 – “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all.”
And all of [url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 22&version=KJV] Revelation 22.[/url]
Then the statement from the old Methodist hymn and service book, [i]”Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the One True Church, Apostolic and Universal, Whose Holy Faith let us now declare…”[/i]
Alice Linsley is concerned that ACNA is too Protestant. A Protestant will react to her article by saying “It is good that ACNA is not tacking close to the errors inherent in Catholicism.” This only serves to highlight the mutual exclusivity of Catholic and Protestant Theology.
But she is right about WO. That subject isn’t going to go away. The current arrangement is nothing but political expediency. Eventually the reasons for that expediency will attenuate, and those who support WO will start pushing against the rules that limit upward mobility for women. An organization cannot indefinitely remain half-slave and half-free (or to complete the analogy) half-pro-WO and half-orthodox. It must eventually become all one thing or all the other.
carl
On the other hand Orthodoxy allows married priests and requires unmarried Bishops.
There is much that I agree with in Alice Linsley’s depiction of contemporary Anglicanism. In my experience (I attend an AMIA church that was formerly ECUSA) there is very little that distinguishes it from most evangelical churches. It has the same music (CCM), the same use of technology (ppt), and the same idiom (we just…., “love on,” etc). Years ago, we joined for the traditional liturgy and music, coupled with the orthodox theology, but over time it has become essentially an evangelical church. If you are a young family (like us) you can only attend the happy clappy services because they don’t offer child care in the traditional service. In my opinion, contemporary Anglicanism is far too influenced by the church growth movement.
To be honest, she lost me when she stated that Tradition (note the capital T) holds that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity to England. Um, really? I know it’s a lovely tale — one that I enjoy very much, btw, and hope is true — but I don’t believe it’s part of Church Tradition with a capital T, as in being proven.
That’s a microcosm of my impression of the essay. She takes things as she sees them and has experienced them and makes them into American Anglican Truths. I happen to belong to a parish that is both High Church in worship/practice and Evangelical in teaching, something that she states doesn’t exist. And I’ve never attended a “revisionist” parish. So, would I be any more correct in asserting that my experiences in TEC represent the state of the church in general? Of course not. And that’s partly what is being done here.
Lastly, I thought the shots taken at Fr. Matt and Sarah Hey were rather meowy.
(The writer is a laywoman now in the Orthodox Church–KSH)
Before joining the Orthodox Church, Ms. Linsley was a minister (priest) in TEC.
#8 Teatime2
[blockquote]To be honest, she lost me when she stated that Tradition (note the capital T) holds that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity to England[/blockquote]
Oh, but it’s true. Joseph even planted the staff he brought with him from Palestine. It grew into a thorn tree on a hill under which King Arthur is buried, and from which he will arise again when the country is in danger. It is about a mile from the spot where Joseph buried the Holy Grail, and so on.
Makes me glad I’ve chosen the Continuum, though I hope with all my heart that the ACNA gets these things sorted out. (I am an Orthodox Christian who is for several reasons moving to the English Catholicism of the Anglican variety.)
revdons at #3. We reject your notions because they in essence tell us that the Church must kowtow to whatever fad mindlessly followed, whatever lingo however debased, whatever theology or practice however uncatholic as long it doesn’t cross a certain minimalist line. Throught the Church’s long history, the Holy Spirit has selected certain historically-bound and/or culturally-bound practices in order to freeze them in time, thus transforming them into icons of the eternal. And simply isn’t true (or at least it’s an oversimplification) to argue that “our predecessors were fine with using new forms of language, art, and culture in worship, architecture, etc.”) In fact they were very selective in what they used, and much did not make the cut. That’s because the Holy Spirit was at work in this process. And that is a different spirit than the one which so blithely approves “hip-hop culture, gap khakis instead of some ancient robe and LCD and Plasma screens with computer generated religious art.” What you say is fit only for a musem we say timelessly conveys the Gospel in a way that modernity cannot. What Russell Kirk and others write about cultural traditionalism is true of ecclesiastical traditionalism too. I hope you get a chance to read them.
Carl at 5. Well then so much for the ancient Faith. As some over at The Continuum blog have noted, the ACNA’s mutant and mutating Protestantism will at some point likely drive the Catholics in the ACNA into the arms of the Continuing Movement, or (alas) to Orthodoxy or Rome. At least they will find some sort of stability in the former two, and to a lesser degree the latter. But if the ACNA plays its cards right, it will LISTEN to these great three Catholic traditions, throw off the neo-Montanism, the feminism and the modern Evangelical’s penchant for the trendy, recapture a more sound English Reformational spirit, and become a “Broad Church” in the best sense of that word.
This is a very poignant and brilliant article. My wife and I are contemplating the very same conversion to Orthodoxy as we strongly feel that we are the last Anglo-Catholics standing after years of worshipping in the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin.
They have buried the 1928 BCP, tinkered with the Liturgy and the Eucharist,eliminating the catholicity of the services so to pander to and market their Protestant bent.
We love them but we sure aint one of them anymore.
Intercessor
Thank you for posting this article. I do worry about the acceptance of the evangelical strain as the normative strain in the ACNA. Continued full respect for and acceptance of the catholic strain will be very important to the life of the church as it develops. It often seems that we, the two variants, hardly speak the same religious language any more.
#11 Caedmon
[blockquote]I am an Orthodox Christian who is for several reasons moving to the English Catholicism of the Anglican variety[/blockquote]
I have always been an Anglican and have never known anything else, but I am interested in what you say. May I ask what has attracted you to Anglicanism? What do you think it has going for it?
#2 Fr Jay Scott Newman
[blockquote]One of the signal differences, it seems to me, between Evangelicals and Catholics is that the former believe that the nature and number, the origin and efficacy of the sacraments are secondary or even tertiary questions in Christian faith and life, while Catholics hold these questions to be primary because the sacraments are the ordinary means of grace for our justification and sanctification. Get the sacraments wrong, Catholics hold, and you’ll get the Gospel wrong.[/blockquote]
There are no doubt Evangelicals and Protestants who do not take the two sacraments which we believe are ordained by Christ, baptism and the eucharist seriously, but Anglican Evangelicals traditionally have not been among them. Even John Stott has always considered himself a catholic as well as a reformed Church of England priest, and that includes the centrality of the Eucharist as a sacrament. Theories of the way the Eucharist works vary from the more catholic theory of there being a sacrifice offered anew in the mass, whereas evangelicals know that the sacrifice was made once and for all by Christ on the Cross, and there are varying degrees of memorialism. None of that means that evangelicals do not take this sacrament seriously, and there are many such as myself who believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, without following the RC idea of the priest acting for Christ offering again a sacrifice in the Mass. If you wish to understand the Anglican understanding of sacraments and of the Eucharist in particular, you can do no better than to read the Articles of the Church of England carefully. You will see that we go back to the Gospel for our understanding of the Eucharist. Get the Gospel right, Anglicans hold, and you’ll get the sacraments right.
More generally, many thanks to Alice Linsley for this piece. I have noticed some of the angst going on in ACNA and between the more catholic and evangelical ends. I don’t have a dog in this fight but my view for what it is worth is that the CofE and the Anglican Communion over the last hundred years, through controversies and battles any bit as hard fought as those in the Reformation, and those now going on in ACNA, came to a compromise rooted in the Gospel, but allowing for variations, and different understandings provided those Gospel essentials were maintained. For me that is part of the richness and the joy of Anglicanism, and how much poorer we would be without each of those elements.
For ACNA, one of their strengths is that at the start they could well have said clearly they were evangelical, or catholic, or pro w/o or anti w/o or infant baptisers, or adult baptisers, or memorialists, or cessationists, or any of the other points of division which have beset Christianity. I thought it rather wonderful that ACNA was able to do this, and a strength that they, evangelical, catholic and so on had said that they wanted to continue to be together, just like other Anglicans are, but that given the opportunity to decide afresh, they decided that they wished to endorse the variety of Anglicanism, that so many others decry as inconsistent, unstable and so on. That is great in my view.
I have no recipe for what ACNA should do, but just from the outside I would say continue to do what you are doing; stick together; avoid the pressure to sort out issues like w/o once and for all and the divisions it will bring, but give space to all the groups you now encompass; perhaps continue to enable this by looking at grouping not by geography, but by affinity as well.
Moreover model yourselves on English dioceses where bishops model themselves on being the servants of the servants of God in all their various churchmanships rather than the prince-bishops of TEC who ruthlessly expel any group or priest who doesn’t follow the line they set.
Finally, avoid the temptation to write your own articles of faith, new prayerbook, and so on. The last forty years have seen the movement away from the traditional BCP [1662] once shared across the Communion, and the theology of that prayerbook along with the Articles. Therein lies much of the problems which have arisen and the rootlessness which has beset us comes from that. Now everybody has their own prayerbook ranging from the CofE with its still official BCP 1662 and updated Common Worship, to the creative and sometimes bizarre New Zealand prayerbook, to the completely unique and wacky Baptismal Covenant and prayerbook of TEC.
The last thing we need is a new prayer book and confession. We have plenty already. What we need if we are to hold together as Anglicans is not new prayerbooks, but to reread and understand those we already have, including the new [in the last 150 years] variants. As Anglicans we need to study them to understand where we have come from, in order to remember who we are.
Intercessor at 12. Just curious, why Orthodoxy and not the Continuum? I ask that question as someone who spent 13 years in the Orthodox Church, only to discover that I was an Anglo-American Catholic. The Orthodox Western Rite parishes that use the Liturgy of St. Tikhon (tweaked BCP) surely do seem Anglican in ethos, but their future is questionable. There is much antipathy against the Western Rite among the “Byzantines”, who make up the majority of the Orthodox Church. Is the existence of a Western Rite assured?
Many converts to Orthodoxy (myself included) experienced a subtle but pervasive anti-Westernism in that Church. When all and said is done, it is not a Western Church, but an Eastern one, and the “economic” permission to build a bishopless “Western Rite Vicariate” does not do anything to change this fact. Orthodoxy was and remains an immigrant church here in America. All its attempts to “Americanize” have been in vain – as well they should be.
The Anglo-American apostolic succession is alive and well. And knowing what I know now, I would endeavor to start a mssion church under one of the Continuing bodies before I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Pageantmaster at 14.
Does my comment above more or less answer your question? If not, feel free to follow up.
#16 Caedmon – thank you, your #15 does indeed explain much. I did note that some of the Orthodox churches use our Coverdale version of the Psalms as an English translation, as well as the King James Bible and some parts of our old prayer book. This all seemed to date from a point around the turn of the 19th into the 20th Century when our churches seemed to be getting very close, curiously closer than we have ever been to the RC church recently. But events intervened, and we moved apart, mostly in my church I am sorry to say. But I am still interested in not just why you moved from the Orthodox Church which you explained, but what drew you to Anglicanism and what you think it has going for it?
I am probably too close to see it clearly, so that is why I am interested in your perspective as someone who made the decision to move in the Anglican direction.
Awesome story….thank you for posting this…..being the other half of Intercessor and speaking for myself….I love many of the Continuing Anglican Churches but not only is there none close to where we live there are still issues within them. I am not saying that there are no issues within any denomination as I know there are…nothing is safe from the secular world and human beings bent in their own thinking and own way….and that is where and why I am leaning to the Orthodox Church. As I seek to learn more about it the more I love the fact that it has not changed! They worship in the same mannor as they have for centuries….the Word of God does not change, God does not change, so why should the worship style fro the Apostles change? It should not…but we humans seem to think that “We can make it better.” The Western Churches seem to be trying to change their churches to fit the world instead of leaving that which was put into place by Jesus Christ and the Apostles well enough alone and saying, “No, we are not of the world. We do not conform to fit the world and the world view, but we stay true to that which has been given to us and has been established.” (Speaking in a third person)…..
The church has split so many times it is pathetic! The Orthodox Church has suffered no splits within itself….one should think on that for a while…..Hear today gone tomorrow is a saying of the world but it should never be nor be allowed in The Church. Going to an Eastern Orthodox Church is like going home to our original Christian home and I can rest assured that it will not change and conform to the whims of the world and to human innovations.
I am sick of the fractures, the infighting, the heresies, and the changing to make the ears of those in the pews feel feel comfy and cozy…..I am not finding any of that within the Orthodox Church….and I wonder everyday what God thinks about all the fractures, the infighting, the heresies, and the changing to make all those sitting in the pews feel comfy cozy?
So, if I am going to be making a change I am going back to the beginning to the original roots of the faith once delivered that has not conformed and changed for the world and for humans.
17. Pageantmaster: Well, in addition to the reasons I set forth previously, there are these: 1) Ever since I became a liturgical Christian, I have loved the BCP. It is the center, along with Holy Scripture, of my devotional life. It only makes sense that being an Anglican would cohere with my rule of prayer; 2) I’ve been influenced in my thinking by some of the English Catholic (Anglican AND Roman) greats (e.g., Lewis; Chesterton); 3) Anglicans have produced some of the finest biblical, theological and liturgical scholars in the world; 4) There’s just enough “Reformation-friendliness” even in Anglo-Catholicism to make me happy. Some reforms were in fact needed, but the English Church strove to avoid the more radical reforms of the confessional Protestants and sectarians on the Continent; 5) Anglicanism is just more amenable to the “Western mind” than Orthdoxy; English Catholicism is the faith of my fathers — even the sectarian ones.
TLDillon: It’s certainly not my intent to burst your bubble, and forgive my frankness here, but you are like so many of the idealistic, dreamy-eyed converts that so many of us were. Let me just assure you that the grass over there is not any greener, and that whatever glories Orthodoxy has that the Continuinfg churches have are easily outweighed by their several pathologies.
To suggest that the Orthodox Church has not “changed” over history is to be wholly oblivious to the historical facts. Yes, they have not apostasized as much of mainstream Anglicanism has, but it has changed. The Liturgy of St. John Chysostom was not said in 2nd-century Eastern Churches. The Orthodox administer the divine mysteries with a spoon, a 14th-century innovation that changed the ancient practice of receiving the host in the hand, as described by Cyril of Jerusalem in the Catechetical Lectures. Orthodoxy’s more liberal stance on divorce and remarriage was in fact adopted to please the Byzantine court, so it’s not true that it’s never “conformed and changed for the world and for humans. ” The hesychastic techniques introduced by the school of Gregory of Palamas are late, not to mention controversial. The list goes on.
The Orthodox Church has in fact split several times during its history, and today there are various “non-canonical” bodies in existence, most of them Old Calendarist sects.
Pardon me for saying so, but you appear to have developed a bad case of “Convert Syndrome.” I would recommend that you attempt to ratchet down the passion and take a cool, reasoned look at the church before you join. Just my $0.02
Should read:
“whatever glories Orthodoxy has that the Continuing churches don’t have are easily outweighed by their several pathologies.
“its several pathologies.” Oh never mind.
#18 TL Dillon
How lovely to hear from you, but:
[blockquote]The church has split so many times it is pathetic! The Orthodox Church has suffered no splits within itself….one should think on that for a while[/blockquote]
Wherever did you get that idea? I can think of few more argumentative and fractious groups of churches. They won’t sit down and talk to the Roman Catholics if the one of the Baltic Orthodox churches turns up; the Moscow and Ecumenical Patriarchates are fighting it out from Cannes across Europe for the ownership of churches, and although they have much in common in theology, they have nowhere near the cohesion of meeting and deciding together that the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches have. They are argumentative and fractious, perhaps reflecting the argumentative and fractious nations they are rooted in.
That said they also have a deep well of spirituality, beauty and stillness which is attractive to many Anglicans including myself. I make a point of visiting Byzantine churches whenever I am in those Eastern Mediterranean countries, and some of us get so involved, such as the current ABC, that his thought bears only a passing resemblance to anything Cranmer would recognise, so far to the East has he wandered. There are large differences between us and the Orthodox however, including the emphasis on the very personal relationship with our Saviour which we emphasise.
Your evident disillusion with what Anglican churches are available to you, much as for Alice Linsley fills me with sadness. It is issues like w/o which will do for ACNA if it does not provide for the catholic end as well as the Evangelical, but I think part of the problem lies at the foot of the Roman and Anglo-Catholic approach. I am sad to see a bright and knowledgeable woman such as Alice, and indeed other Anglo-Catholic women I know with no outlet for the clear vocation God has given them. Without being a priest the church has called and honored deaconesses from the early times and the dispensing with this necessary corrolary to priests, gives no available outlet for the calling of devout catholic women. It is tragic and something which needs addressing, even while not undermining the view of priesthood the catholic end has. It leaves no outlet for these fantastic women other than to either deny their catholic beliefs and seek ordination, or accept that their state in their church or even a foreign church will be that of a perpetual laywoman, and in the case of Alice to deny her orders. What a waste.
I would also say that were ACNA to ‘resolve’ issues such as w/o they would in my view be signing their own death warrant as a part of the Anglican Communion. They will have set themselves on the fracturing path taken by the Continuum ever since the ’70’s which spun them further and further from Anglicanism, even as they continue to fracture, and to my mind will not be worth backing as the Anglican province in formation I support. So I hope the wonderful mix of the evangelical, traditional and catholic continue in ACNA to support and make space for one another, and keep together as a faithful Anglican presence, even as TEC collapses onto life-support for a few years which looks terminal at the moment. It would be sad to see a total vaccuum in North America for the Anglicanism it needs as part of the Communion.
Caedmon…I stand by what I wrote and what I see and what I am learning… I also stand solidly with what Alice Linsley has written….you sound much like a person looking to find “his happiness” where he feels comfortable. I am not….
So you and I will have to agree to vigorously disagree and leave it at that because I do not intend on getting in a tit-for-tat back and forth with you as we obviously stand on opposite ground. You are free to walk your way as I am free to walk mine! You go where God leads you and I will go as God leads me and I am going with eyes wide open without rose colored glasses but yes….with a passion in my heart ….for Christ…..God speed and bless you.
#19 Caedmon – thank you for that thoughtful explanation in reply to my question. Very helpful and something I will think about.
Pageantmaster…
I have done much within the Anglican Church in so far as ministry goes and I do not have to be ordained to do it……I use every gift God has bestowed on me in the world to show that he is my Savior and my Guide and my Life, and again I do not need to be ordained to do that and I certainly do not feel like I am being wasted. Actually I have been ordained…I was ordained when I was baptized to go out and spread the Good News….I do not have to wear a collar to do that. There are a vast amount of ways as a woman that we can do that with out a title of Reverend.
The fracturing I am talking about is the kind that has happened since Rome. The kind where we pick up our marbles and leave the sand box to go start a new sand box and put a new name on it! I wonder does anyone know just how many Christian denominations there really are in the world today?
The Anglican Communion is making me ill on a regualr basis with all the garbage that continues to go on….It just seems like God especially and historical traditions, and history is being kicked to the curb and the whims of humans and their needs of ridiculous things like “Praise Bands, Speaking in Tongues, No Incense, Open Communion, etc…” are the tings that are taking priority…..i am tired of it and the innovations. It is just that simple! ;>)
I think the other remarkable thing which has happened with ACNA is the way it has drawn back together parts of the Continuum, notably the REC into the comprehensive whole. Such an organism that can hold together the radical evangelical such as AMiA [up to a point] at one end and the Anglo Catholic dioceses at the other involves no little tension and some willingness to respect views which go against one’s own viewpoint, but much as in England, evangelicals and anglo catholics have started talking to one another for the first time in several generations, and not a little mutual incomprehension, ACNA has been going through the same exercise, as Alice Linsley recognises. This is getting rid of some of the misconceptions on both sides, but there is also an element of culture shock which is then replaced by curiosity, and then genuine interest. Certainly that has been my experience, and I am thankful for it.
TLDillon @ 23.
Godspeed.
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-01-027-v
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/NassifGospel.php
Pageantmaster at 22. The Catholic Church does not ordain or recognize “priestesses.” Never has and never will. That’s why Mrs. Linsley, who is an intelligent, faithful and honorable Catholic woman, renounced her orders for the Catholic faith. In fact, WO and all the theological rot that underlies it is the Arianism of our day. The Orthodox Catholic bishops of old told us that if our bishop preaches heresy, we are to run from him to another bishop. That’s what the folks in the Contining Anglican movement have done.
#25 TL Dillon
I had always though of you as an active laywoman and happy to be so, but in my comment I was thinking of Alice and one or two others I know.
For myself, I am very happy with sung eucharist, and also with BCP 1662 services, and praise bands although tongues is not something I have received. I don’t like incense, because I can’t be in a room with any smoke at all without coughing asthmatically. I prefer hymns to worship songs, but see merit in both. God inhabits the praises of His people and I find him there whatever the variety of worship.
There is a lot of garbage in the Anglican Communion at the moment, particularly emanating from Lambeth Palace and what used to operate as Instruments. But there are a majority of faithful provinces, and much as nature abhors a vacuum in North America and ACNA has arrived, it seems to me inevitable that if the stubborness of the ABC continues, that something else will come along shortly and the shambles of North America will come elsewhere. Anyway I am not worrying about all that. I have stopped reading anything from Rowan Williams and did not read the pretend standing committee minutes, but am just getting on with my life and leaving it all in God’s hands during Lent, and spending time with Anglicans such as those I talk to on blogs like this one including you, which is always a pleasure.
#27 Caedmon
I was not aware Alice Linsley had been a Roman Catholic between Anglicanism and her arrival in the Orthodox church.
Deaconesses are not priests, but are one of the many old orders which existed including lay orders, which is what I understood them to be. As an Anglican, I take what the Gospel teaches as those things necessary for salvation which are required to be believed of Christians, which excludes Arianism and other heresies. I personally have no objection in theory to women priests, but on two grounds am prepared to subsume my own views to: the teaching of my church; and not to create impediments to unity with other Christians. The point about deaconesses, as I understand it, is that they are a lay order, as I think are deacons, neither of whom act as consecrator of bread and wine or other priestly functions.
29. Pageantmaster.
I was speaking only of the ordination of women to the priesthood. I have no objections to deaconesses in principle, but inasmuch as (in the Orthodox Church anyway) the feminsts are trying to use the reinstitution of that ancient order to create a stonghold from which they can more effectively wage their war for the ordination of women to the priesthood, I can see why in practice the Church would say no, as the Orthodox Church currently does.
Pageantmaster, awesome link at #10. 🙂
Are only members of the Church of Rome entitled to call themselves “catholic”?
I just ask because an amazing grab-bag of practices are being defined as “evangelical”. It seems that if you are evangelical, you must practice all these things.
Alice Linley refers to “contemporary music, streamlined liturgies, leniency toward divorce and remarriage”.
Silly me – I have been evangelical all my life, and I would not have viewed any of these things as particularly “evangelical”. Still, I agree that there are some that call themselves evangelical who practice them, so perhaps that means that all evangelicals by definition hold to these practices?
TLDillon also mentioned “Praise Bands, Speaking in Tongues, No Incense”
Again, not one of these things is specifically “evangelical” either, although some who call themselves evangelical may practice them.
But I suppose that if the Popes of the blogosphere have declared that this is “evangelical”, then so it must be! Conversely, I assume that, somewhere, there is also a narrow and detailed description of “catholic”, and anyone who does not fit that definition cannot properly describe themselves that way. Once we have found it, then there will be an awful lot of people who are no longer catholic!
TLDillon
Which Orthodox communion are you going to join – the Eastern Orthodox or the Oriental Orthodox? It has to be one or the other, since they haven’t had communion with each other since the 6th century AD.
Teatime at #8,
You make two very good points:
(a) Alice Linley’s private doctrines about Joseph of Arimathea are peculiar, to say the least. It highlights the usual problem with those who elevate Tradition to the highest principle – every person has a different idea of what the Tradition is. And yes, I also appreciate Pageantmaster’s Glastonbury link!
(b) “Meowy” – I love it.
Coming from Alice who not so long ago was happy to accept the status of priesthood in TEC, this is all very curious.
Pageantmaster at #14,
Very well written. Amen.
Michael at 34. What’s so “curious” about it? She re-examined the issue honestly and changed her mind.
Response to Pageantmaster. Why the ACNA needs to get these things, especially WO, “sorted out”:
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2011/02/whats-difference.html
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2009/05/letter-to-bishop-robert-duncan-from-acc.html
MichaelA,
Yes, if she wants to believe that, it’s her prerogative. But basing an argument about the priesthood on legend is hugely problematic.
And I do find it troublesome when people who change their minds about such things (WO) feel the need to turn around and damn the very principles that allowed them to serve when they believed they were called. If you come to embrace different teachings and philosophies, then follow your conscience and go in peace. Live fully into your new reality and don’t concern yourself with what you left behind. Above all, retract claws. 😉
#14, Pageantmaster,
In stating that Evangelical Anglicans are serious about and accept the centrality and sacramentality of Baptism and the Eucharist, you have inadvertently confirmed my point. No Catholic, including no Anglo-Catholic, can accept that there only two sacraments, and to dismiss the other five — most especially the sacramental priesthood of bishops and presbyters — is, in effect, to deny the sacramentality of the Eucharist. My point was simple: Evangelicals (including Evangelical Anglicans) and Catholics (including Anglo-Catholics) have a fundamental disagreement about the nature and number, the origin and efficacy of the sacraments. Moreover, for the moment, that disagreement has been set aside in the interest of co-belligerancy against the enormities of the Episcopal Church, but it is inevitable that this disagreement will again come to the fore and prove the undoing of whatever institutional unity is contrived for new Anglican jurisdictions in North America. Put most simply: an Anglican who believes that there is a divinely instituted priesthood in the Church on which the celebration of the Holy Eucharist depends and that women cannot (not should not, cannot) hold this priesthood, cannot receive the sacramental ministrations of an ordained woman. When that dispute returns to center stage, as it must, then Evangelicals and Catholics in the new Anglican jurisdictions will find themselves back where they have ever been — divided by a matter of faith.
Quite frankly I am grateful for the divisions. It has one positive benefit in that we no longer burn each other at the stake. How often have I seen a disagreement on theology, WO for example or inerrency of scripture, to name just two, result in the foulest language and most hateful attacks. If hurling anathemas at each other resulted in burning at the stake the land would be a bonfire.
Fr. Jay Scott Newman…..Very, very, very well put and spot on. I personally would include “ordained” female deacons in that mix as well…..it is just wrong IMHO.
And Br. Michael…..no burning these days. We just keep splitting the body of Christ and then sue them. That is how we show we are Christians!
Jesus surely weeps.
It’s an interesting piece and certainly her particular analysis of why the “new American Anglicanism” has issues is fitting considering the doctrine and dogma to which she is now committed.
I don’t think she’s “meowy” about Matt and Sarah [but I love the term!] — after all, she was asked about the two by a guy who’s been irked with them for a good many years now and is still obsessed [which really explains a lot about him] and she responded with her perspective; even if she had been bitterly enraged with them [which she wasn’t], I don’t see that as meowy — everybody has a right to personal likes and dislikes or even objections as to people’s style or values or priorities and commitments, without being thought “meowy”. Neither SF or its bloggers are for everyone, that’s for sure. And she’s dead right — neither Matt nor Sarah “represent Anglicanism.” The only objection I’ve had to her personal comments is that for a long time she went about claiming that she’d been banned by SF and didn’t know why — which was odd since we almost always happily blazon the reasons for any revocation of commenting privileges to the skies in the comments and couples such things with previous public warnings — and the two blog names she commented on are still and have always been “open for business” — at least over at SF. So no banning ever occurred — most likely “user error” I expect. As I recall she was warned a couple of times about importing WO — the obsession of some — into blog posts that had nothing to do with WO. But as is demonstrably evident over the years — *all* blog posts about Anglicanism ultimately have to do with WO according to those who believe certain dogmas and doctrines. We can see that right here on this very thread. ; > )
Moving on to the substance of the piece — she points out a number of scattershot issues, which ultimately seem to devolve to “the problems with Protestantism and why Anglicanism can never really be healthy if it is Protestant” [a common theme of a few RC’s and EOs]. I do see that she conflates “Protestantism” [which — again — given her doctrine and dogma she sees as the central problem, ultimately] with “evangelicalism” which she then conflates with various populist forms of worship and charismatic expression. And then she goes on to the usual issue of WO. In regards to WO, I’ve always said that those who see the sacraments as Rome or the EO do obviously won’t be able to be a part of any kind of re-formed Anglicanism. They will leave no matter what, and quite frankly, fixing WO to their satisfaction [ie, no WO whatsoever anywhere within Anglicanism] will only slow their eventual travels since it doesn’t really fix the fact that most Anglicans don’t accept Rome’s notions of the sacraments — so then there would be other issues far beyond WO after WO were “dealt with” [which again, ultimately means no WO anywhere ever].
Ultimately, ACNA won’t divide over WO [and we know this because the vast majority of Anglicans are able to do just fine with the African arrangement for the past 30 years, which is essentially the ACNA arrangement]. If it divides it will divide over far deeper and broader issues.
As to the worship practices she mentions, certainly there’s an abundance of no-BCP, PowerPoint, contemporary hymns, etc. You find this most particularly in the large successful parishes who left TEC but also in many smaller parishes that are attempting to grow or be evangelically relevant [or, are just made up of folks and clergy who like that kind of worship].
But that gets back to “who left TEC” doesn’t it. The reason why much of ACNA is made up of people who are strikingly low-church and/or trending charismatic is because those are a big chunk of the people who left, coupled with some committed Anglo-Catholics. So you’ve got folks who think of themselves as “catholic” coupled with charismatic expression, folks who are low-church populist evangelical, and then AngloCatholics [mixed in with a few who accept the doctrine and dogma of Rome and who are leaving ACNA, as with some Fort Worth clergy].
That pretty much explains why so many of the parishes of ACNA worship as they do.
I’ve got my own issues with ACNA which I’ve been frank about . . . but they aren’t the same as those who hold the commitments of doctrine and dogma of Rome and the EO, obviously, since I don’t hold those commitments or beliefs.
Keep in mind that for *some* [not all, and I’m not accusing Alice Linsley of this] their predictions about Anglicanism and ACNA’s doom are more *hopes* and *wishes* than anything else, in keeping with their belief that Protestantism is fundamentally flawed and that their own church is, naturally, the only option. So their motives in their predictions of doom are largely to try to peel off those people who are afraid that Anglicanism cannot be catholic [which of course, the “wish-casters” certainly believe cannot be the case since they define “catholic” in a certain particular way anyway]. The goal there is to discourage in particular the AngloCatholics — and again, given their doctrine and dogma, as well as their own embittered past ecumenical history, that take is perfectly understandable.
Interesting that Teatime does not truly believe that when one has had their eyes opened to the errors of their ways and have turned and repented of them can then truly speak out about their error and why it was an error with validity. St. Paul who was once Paul comes to mind and we profess at our baptism that we will turn and repent if we sin and error….(paraphrasing here).
One has to truly believe in that statement “to turn and repent” and in the power of forgiveness and the power to be changed and molded by God.
Oops! Should be “St. Paul who used to be Saul…” sorry
PS: Thank you MichaelA and Teatime for the nice comments about SF bloggers. I just thought she was remarkably restrained considering the chasm of difference between the theology [a wide *wide* range of Reformed and/or evangelical Anglicanism], values, and priorities of the SF bloggers’ in general with her own theology, values, and priorities.
But thanks again.
On another fun note . . . William Witt’s series about the larger issues that Alice Linsley slightly touches on is great. [Of course, RCs and EOs won’t agree with his thesis.] But for those of us who are Anglicans, they are great reads:
http://willgwitt.org/anglicanism/evangelical-or-catholic/
http://willgwitt.org/anglicanism/the-anglican-reformers-were-not-zwinglians/
http://willgwitt.org/anglicanism/the-anglican-reformers-addendum/
http://willgwitt.org/anglicanism/evangelical-or-catholic-bibliography/
40, you just proved my point.
PLEASE, Sarah,”fun” is NOT an adjective. Never. Therefore one cannot say “funner” or “funnest.” (Thank Heaven.) Larry
RE: “PLEASE, Sarah,“fun†is NOT an adjective.”
Not certain what my usage of the word “fun” as an attributive noun has to do with adjectives?
#38 Fr Jay Newman
[blockquote]In stating that Evangelical Anglicans are serious about and accept the centrality and sacramentality of Baptism and the Eucharist, you have inadvertently confirmed my point. No Catholic, including no Anglo-Catholic, can accept that there only two sacraments, and to dismiss the other five—most especially the sacramental priesthood of bishops and presbyters—is, in effect, to deny the sacramentality of the Eucharist.[/blockquote]
Dear oh dear Fr Jay, you really must pay attention to what people write:
[blockquote]There are no doubt Evangelicals and Protestants who do not take the two sacraments which we believe are ordained by Christ, baptism and the eucharist seriously, but Anglican Evangelicals traditionally have not been among them.[/blockquote]
“ordained by Christ” is an important qualification, and reflects the instructions of Christ to observe them. Now things like marriage we refer to as a holy estate:
[blockquote]Holy Matrimony, which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union which is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first miracle that he wrought at Cana of Galilee…
BCP 1662[/blockquote]
Now if you had done as I suggested and read carefully the link I posted in #14 you would have seen that the reason we emphasise and pay particular attention to the two sacraments which are ordained by Christ is because our Saviour has specifically instructed us in the Gospels to observe firstly Baptism, and secondly the Eucharist. That is not to say that marriage and the priesthood etc which are included in the seven sacraments of the RC church or the considerably greater number and perhaps unlimited number accepted in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches are not important and ‘sacramental’ to Anglicans, both evangelical and anglo-catholic, but just that we pay particular attention to those which for all of us were “ordained by Christ”. Whether one calls these others a holy estate or a sacrament is neither here nor there; not all of us are called to say the priesthood which is a rite to be entered into as needed, but all of us are called to and instructed to be baptised and to observe the Eucharist as a sacrament ordained by Christ as something set out in the gospels as “necessary to be believed for our salvation” which is the acid test Anglicans of all stripes apply.
Now the Orthodox churches have considerably more sacraments than the Roman Catholics. They include monastic tonsure [the holy haircut] and burial of the dead. Indeed the guiding principle the Orthodox seem to apply is that they regard as a sacrament or ‘Holy Mystery’ anything done by the Church as Church. This obviously differers from what is explicit in both the RC and Anglican churches, although I doubt we would argue that such things are in some sense ‘sacramental’. What Anglicans do is to emphasise the essential nature for all Christians of baptism and the eucharist because they have been ordained by Christ for all of us.
Anglicans do not deny the essential sacramental nature of ordination or the role of ordained ministry in the administration of the eucharist, although like the RC and Orthodox churches we do not require baptism to be performed by a priest. So to say, as you do, that we “deny the sacramentality of the Eucharist” is just nonsense, although the sort of nonsense which is regularly trotted out on the continuum blogs and only challenged when it comes out of the continuum bubble onto outside Anglican blogs like this one.
[blockquote]Moreover, for the moment, that disagreement has been set aside in the interest of co-belligerancy against the enormities of the Episcopal Church, but it is inevitable that this disagreement will again come to the fore and prove the undoing of whatever institutional unity is contrived for new Anglican jurisdictions in North America.[/blockquote]
Again, stuff and nonsense. Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics can get alone in ACNA in just the same way as they can in the other churches of the Anglican Communion. Not always very easily, I admit, but it is perfectly feasible, and exactly what we have always done. It does however require both provision for Anglo Catholic [and evangelical for that matter] congregations who cannot accept the w/o ministration; and on the other hand the willingness to work with one another on a general level, rather than going down the divisive route you suggest, presumably to get all our Anglo-Catholics into the Church of Rome, or the Continuum.
#48, Pageantmaster,
For a Catholic, to say that a sacrament was not instituted by Christ is to say that it is not a sacrament of New Covenant. Also for a Catholic, there is no possibility of the Eucharist without the sacramental priesthood. That is why Catholics insist that is is logically impossible to talk about the Eucharist as a sacrament without also talking about the priesthood as a sacrament. I realize that Evangelicals, including Evangelical Anglicans, do not believe this to be true, and that is precisely my point: these two approaches to the number and origin of the sacraments are logically, ontologically, and theologically irreconcilable, but that fact is simply being ignored at the moment because traditional Anglicans of both persuasions have temporarily set aside their church dividing disagreement about this issue in the face of open war with the Episcopal Church. Once that war is concluded, however, then the old differences will once again be unavoidable. Please understand, my point in every comment on this thread is not to make an argument for the Catholic understanding of the sacraments; it is simply to point out that the Catholic and Evangelical ways of understanding of the sacraments cannot, finally, be sustained together in one church. The Anglican attempt to do so has failed, and the results of the failure are depriving congregations of their property and clerics of their livelihood. Ideas, after all, do have consequences.
Pageantmaster, #48, I think the ACNA experiment will survive if it refrains from elevating any women to bishoprics. As it is, an ordained woman cannot celebrate in those parishes and dioceses which do not accept her ordination as valid. If there were a woman bishop, these parishes and dioceses could not be under her jurisdiction nor accept the validity of the orders of those whom she might ordain. This is precisely where the CofE finds itself, and I hope that it will pull back from the edge of the precipice upon which it stands.
#42 TLDillon,
Please don’t tell me (and others) what it is that I “truly believe.” I’m not trying to be nasty but it irks me to no end when people make sweeping statements about a stranger’s “beliefs,” based on some contextual comments in a discussion. It’s disingenuous.
I will simply say this: Alice Linsley is no St. Paul. She has revealed a very skewed view of the church and the priesthood in her missive, based mostly on her own personal beliefs and experiences which she tries to ascribe to church Tradition and Truth (note the capital Ts). That does not work, it contains personal motive, and comparing it to the teaching of St. Paul is ridiculous.
Sarah,
NP. I just found it odd (and, yes, meowy) that she felt inclined to put particular names and faces to her opposition and elevate them to a status that neither has claimed for her own rhetorical purposes. Very unnecessary; didn’t help her credibility, made it seem like axe-grinding.
Fr Jay Scott Newman at #49,
[blockquote] “I realize that Evangelicals, including Evangelical Anglicans, do not believe this to be true, and that is precisely my point:” [/blockquote]
No, FJSN, many anglo-catholics don’t hold it either, in the absolutist way you express it.
I know quite a number of anglo-catholics who accept that there are only two sacraments *of the gospel*, i.e. they essentially follow the doctrine set out in Article XXV of the Article of religion. They do not see this as casting any doubt on the “sacramentality” of the Eucharist.
[blockquote] “it is simply to point out that the Catholic and Evangelical ways of understanding of the sacraments cannot, finally, be sustained together in one church.” [/blockquote]
I understand the limited way in which you are putting this point, but I have to disagree with you because it is so clearly inconsistent with the facts. If you were correct, we would have seen the splits centuries earlier, whereas it is obvious that these splits have been occasioned by the liberal assault on Anglicanism, and the way that many (from both anglo-catholic and evangelical backgrounds) have fallen for its wiles.
The whole point about the Anglicanism of the Articles of Religion (which the vast majority of the world’s Anglicans accept) is that it is both fully Catholic and fully Evangelical. I don’t doubt your sincerity, but that doesn’t mean that your concepts about Anglicanism and Anglo Catholicism are even close to the truth.
[blockquote] “The Anglican attempt to do so has failed, and the results of the failure are depriving congregations of their property and clerics of their livelihood. Ideas, after all, do have consequences.” [/blockquote]
On the contrary, the Anglican “attempt” has been extraordinarily successful. Your concept is based on an unspoken assumption that the liberals in charge of TEC are “evangelical” – an obviously untenable position. Those liberals have caused great splits in American Anglicanism as different groups have left at different times, starting in the late 60s, and including the major departures in 1976, 2001, 2003 and 2008. But the whole point is that this ongoing stream of departures has *not* been due to the “catholic-evangelical divide”, which has existed for hundreds of years previously.
I have to agree that the aftermath of 1976 might seem to support your case – the splintering and fracturing of the “continuum” was extreme, by any standards. But that was anglo-catholics splitting from each other, not from evangelicals. It was also a relatively isolated example. Taking the longer view, it seems clear that the overall tendency of Anglicans is to coalesce, not to split, despite the extreme pressure from the liberals.
You also wrote at #38,
[blockquote] “When that dispute returns to center stage, as it must, then Evangelicals and Catholics in the new Anglican jurisdictions will find themselves back where they have ever been—divided by a matter of faith.” [/blockquote]
You obviously have no idea that many evangelical Anglicans (perhaps most) are strongly opposed to the ordination of women to the priesthood. This should not surprise, since it has been the doctrine firmly held by classical evangelicals from the time of the 16th century reformers onwards. Historically, anglo-catholics are not one whit more committed to a male priesthood than protestants.
For what its worth, here in Australia most of those who have embraced WO are actually anglo-catholic in origin, not that I read a great deal into that – liberalism can corrupt those from any background.
I’ve had several comments, public and private, re Alice Linley’s commitment to the Orthodox (and the orthodox!) doctrine of male priesthood. Let me clarify I accept that she had a genuine change of heart which led her to join the Eastern Orthodox Church, and I do not mean to question her current commitment to that doctrine in any way.
The Truth doth convict! ;>)
#53, MichaelA
1. I am under no illusion that the present leadership of TEC are Evangelicals. My reference to Evangelicals was meant to signify that portion of the leadership in the newly emerging Anglican bodies of North America who, like Bob Duncan, believe that the sacramentality of the priesthood and hence the ordination of women are “second order” issues.
2. The Elizabethan settlement which kept the Church of England and its daughters together for about 375 years did not, in fact, settle anything. Theological arguments were simply postponed to keep Calvinists and Catholics from killing each other, but that postponement has long since been adjourned. Just ask the Anglo-Catholics on either side of the Atlantic. If you can still find any, that is.
3. What neither Evangelical nor Catholic Anglicans foresaw even forty years ago is that all of the First World institutions of Anglicanism would fall to Modernism in one generation, but we have seen that come to pass with dreadful consequences for credal Christians of every persuasion within the Anglican communion.
4. Which leads us back to the alphabet soup of the new (and competing) Anglican jurisdictions now forming in the wreckage of TEC. A brave effort to resume the old Settlement by refusing to acknowledge that the ordination of women was the thin edge of the blade by which modernism took the life of TEC in the first place will not suffice to preserve the new jurisdictions from the centrifugal forces that must ever separate Calvinism (and its various cousins) from Catholicism. The center cannot hold because there is no center, just a truce.
#53 MichaelA says:
I think it’s fair to say that the percentage of reasserting Anglo-Catholics who support WO is roughly zero. Whereas the percentage of reasserting Evangelicals who support WO is some value less than 100% but still greater than zero. Hence the dissension among some of those who are otherwise united in their reassertingness.
(For that matter, based on the WO threads I’ve seen go by on T19 and SF, it often seems that A-C’s and E’s who oppose WO get there by different roads. Whether that in itself signifies theological differences which would ultimately be church-dividing, deponent knoweth not.)
On the reappraising side, I’d guess the percentages of WO supporters among Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals are both very high. But of course y’all have other problems with us than that.
. . . “it is simply to point out that the Catholic and Evangelical ways of understanding of the sacraments cannot, finally, be sustained together in one church. The Anglican attempt to do so has failed . . . ” [he asserted].
No it hasn’t [she asserted].
Of course, the RC and evangelical ways of understanding of the sacraments cannot be sustained in the Anglican Communion — but that was decided a long, long time ago, thankfully.
Fr Jay Scott Newman
[blockquote] What neither Evangelical nor Catholic Anglicans foresaw even forty years ago is that all of the First World institutions of Anglicanism would fall to Modernism in one generation
……
Which leads us back to the alphabet soup of the new (and competing) Anglican jurisdictions now forming in the wreckage of TEC. A brave effort to resume the old Settlement by refusing to acknowledge that the ordination of women was the thin edge of the blade by which modernism took the life of TEC[/blockquote]
Dear oh dear, even more errors.
TEC wasn’t taken by Modernism. It was taken by Liberal Roman Catholics or those trained by them – Lamb, Gullick, Schori [Queen of Angels], Genpo Thew-Forrester [Charles Curran].
When Rome became too hot for them, they and those trained by them headed into TEC, and are now the movers, bishops and presiding bishop. This was a Roman Catholic problem exported to Anglicans.
We have the same problem in England, with Affirming Catholics who are just our equivalent of Liberal Roman Catholics who they share more in common with than with any of us [Williams, Jeffrey John etc]. Some are former Roman Catholics but all cut from the same cloth. They are ruling the roost in the CofE under Williams and TEC, promoting their own and undermining the church, and they are there in the Roman Catholic Church; still there – keeping a low profile….just biding their time. It is the liberal catholics who have made life unbearable for the real Anglo-Catholics, not Bishop Duncan, the Anglican Settlement, evangelicals or anthing or anybody else. You see the Anglo-Catholics show the pretend liberal Catholics up and why they are determined to get rid of them – it is fratricide.
RE: “Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics can get alone in ACNA in just the same way as they can in the other churches of the Anglican Communion. . . . ”
Now now, Pageantmaster. You must know that [i]The Only True AngloCatholics[/i] are those who already accept the doctrine and dogma of Rome — and rather obviously, those Only True AngloCatholics clearly can not get along with evangelicals in the AC! ; > )
#56. Yup. QE1 was a phenomenal politician; under-appreciated today except for academic circles. The miracle is that the settlement held together for centuries….maybe hopeless, perhaps not. We see what the future holds. Best
Fr Jay Scott Newman,
Thanks for your comments. As I wrote above, I do not doubt your sincerity even where we disagree.
[blockquote] “If you can still find any, that is.” [/blockquote]
Note the subtext: If you define “anglo-catholic” to mean only what you decide it means and nothing else, then you can quickly define any issue out of existence!
[blockquote] “What neither Evangelical nor Catholic Anglicans foresaw even forty years ago is that all of the First World institutions of Anglicanism would fall to Modernism in one generation, but we have seen that come to pass with dreadful consequences for credal Christians of every persuasion within the Anglican communion.” [/blockquote]
I wholeheartedly agree.
But I do see the rest of your post as rather confused, because you keep equating the debate over women’s ordination with the issues that have “always” separated calvinism (not an accurate term but I’ll let it pass for the moment) from catholicism. Essentially, you write as though ordination of women has been the epitome of the differences between your concepts of “Protestantism” and “Catholicism” for the past 400 years. That is untenable, whatever way you look at it.
[blockquote] “A brave effort to resume the old Settlement by refusing to acknowledge that the ordination of women was the thin edge of the blade by which modernism took the life of TEC in the first place will not suffice to preserve the new jurisdictions from the centrifugal forces that must ever separate Calvinism (and its various cousins) from Catholicism.” [/blockquote]
Here we go again: assumptions piled on assumptions. Most classical protestants would indeed hold that “the ordination of women was the thin edge of the blade”. Far from acknowledging it, we put the chief blame on the anglo-catholics in the mid-twentieth century for inviting it in! We certainly aren’t responsible for Robert Runcie and his ilk.
I do see ordination of women to the priesthood as a problem, because I think it is contrary to clear apostolic teaching (Like many others, I can see a scriptural justification for women deacons, but that very much depends on how it is done). In the end, I think the Anglican church has to reject women priests. But I am not prepared to cut off communion with other Anglicans immediately, simply because they do recognise women priests. It may eventually come to that, but the Apostles teach us not to be hasty in cutting ourselves off from other Christians. Many attempts to call to repentance must be made first.
[blockquote] “4. Which leads us back to the alphabet soup of the new (and competing) Anglican jurisdictions now forming in the wreckage of TEC.” [/blockquote]
Now, now! The only thing that can properly be described as “alphabet soup” is the continuum from 1977 on to the end of the 20th century – that was indeed a sad story, not just of different organisations, but of deep fractures and splintering. To compare ACNA and AMiA with that falls a long way short of the mark.
Sorry, my last was posted before I saw PM’s and Sarah’s comments. Apologies for any double-up.
#49 Fr Jay Scott Newman
[blockquote]Please understand, my point in every comment on this thread is not to make an argument for the Catholic understanding of the sacraments; it is simply to point out that the Catholic and Evangelical ways of understanding of the sacraments cannot, finally, be sustained together in one church. The Anglican attempt to do so has failed, and the results of the failure are depriving congregations of their property and clerics of their livelihood. Ideas, after all, do have consequences.[/blockquote]
Just one general point if I may on your comment #49 which largely repeats the points of your earlier comment #38.
I think you make a category error in talking of Anglican issues in terms of the theology of the Roman Catholic Church as though it was more generally accepted as the ‘catholic view’ [as Sarah points out in #60] or indeed some wider Christian theology. This category error is evinced in comments such as this:
[blockquote]For a Catholic, to say that a sacrament was not instituted by Christ is to say that it is not a sacrament of New Covenant. Also for a Catholic, there is no possibility of the Eucharist without the sacramental priesthood. That is why Catholics insist that is is logically impossible to talk about the Eucharist as a sacrament without also talking about the priesthood as a sacrament. I realize that Evangelicals, including Evangelical Anglicans, do not believe this to be true, and that is precisely my point: these two approaches to the number and origin of the sacraments are logically, ontologically, and theologically irreconcilable[/blockquote]
You see, Anglicans do take a somewhat different approach to the Roman Catholic Church in that we, from our Reformed side, look back to the Gospels in order to discern those things “necessary to be believed for salvation”. Thus, although Tradition has a place, we are not prepared to prescribe as necessary to be believed ideas and concepts which do not have independent Scriptural warrant. That is not to say that we discount them, such as the bodily assumption of Mary, her virgin birth, or her perpetual virginity, as some Anglo Catholics believe [and others don’t], but we are not prepared to say to our congregants this is something necessary for you to believe as essential to your salvation.
This reflects the influence of the Reformers on the Church of England which remained a catholic church, and did not take on many of the more interesting Continental Reformers’ ideas put forward by for example Calvin, but we did start to view things back to basics in trying to discern a way through the accretions which had attached to the Catholic Church from the 4th Century on. We said [Article VI] Holy Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation, and this remains our emphasis.
So for example, in talking about Sacraments: we look back to the Gospels to see what Christ specifically ordained for us, and find that he specifically and urgently enjoins us to be baptised, and to break bread together in remembrance of him. The emphasis on His words is found in not just one but a number of places in the New Testament, so urgent to communicate these instructions were the writers. Hence Anglicans regard these as Sacraments ordained by Christ and therefore necessary to be believed as necessary for Salvation, in Anglican parlance.
Now Anglicans do not say that the other Five, perhaps minor sacraments listed by Roman Catholics are not sacraments or of their character, or Holy Mysteries, as the Orthodox consider them among others. We honor and observe them, and look for example for the Scriptural place of marriage in the garden of Eden, and in Christ’s first miracle at Cana, but we search in vain for words of Christ enjoining believers to marry in order to be saved, or to be ordained as priests in accordance with the rites of the CofE or RC church for that matter. Again we look back to the priesthood of the Old Testament, and the way St Paul talks of the priesthood of all believers.
Now some regard the basis of Anglican theology in the Scriptures as particularly Anglican, but other churches have been affected by the Reformers’ approach as well, including the Orthodox and RC churches. Invariably you will find these churches going back to Scripture to back up what they are saying.
A particular example which comes to mind for me is the current Pope. He could certainly say ‘this is what the Tradition of the Church says’ or ‘this is what has been said by the Church as part of its infallible teaching’, but I can’t remember him doing so. He invariably examines the Scriptural texts and explicates on them when setting out and explaining the Church’s teaching. You will find the same with the Orthodox leaders.
So Fr Jay, to say that “For a Catholic, to say that a sacrament was not instituted by Christ is to say that it is not a sacrament of New Covenant” is just to talk of Anglican theology in terms of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Catechism. Similarly to say that “Also for a Catholic, there is no possibility of the Eucharist without the sacramental priesthood” is similarly to make a category mistake in talking about Anglican understandings based on the Catholic Catechism. What one should say is that Anglicans practice the Faith ‘as it has been received’ by the Anglican Church. Thus we observe priesthood and regard it as essential for the sacrament of the eucharist, but we do not consider it elevated to be ‘a sacrament ordained by Christ’, because He only ordered two: baptism and holy communion.
Whether one considers there to be two or seven ‘ordained by Christ’ it does not mean that Anglicans do not find the others incompatible with our teaching, but that we look at things primarily based on their Scriptural warrant and then use that in describing them. Marriage and Priesthood are part of the Faith as the Anglican church has received it, because we have examined the Scriptures, found warrant for them, and made them part of our rites and our church law, but not because they were specifically “ordained by Christ” in his instructions to us.
It is a common mistake I have noticed people make to talk about the beliefs of one church in terms of the theology and catechism of another, and this is a category error. One can certainly compare the theologies of the different churches, one with another as ARCIC and the Anglican-Orthodox dialogues do, but it makes no sense to say that different groups within Anglicanism are inconsistent, based on the theology and canons of another church, the Roman Catholic. In fact if you consider the theology of the Anglican church when considering both catholic and evangelical Anglicans [and remember that we consider ourselves BOTH catholic and reformed] then it becomes easily apparent that there is no inconsistency necessary at all. Moreover, the net result in terms of practice may be identical, but perhaps reached by a different route.
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I presume that the Principle of Non-Contradiction applies as much to Protestants as to Catholics, unless Pageantmaster and Sarah are arguing that it does not, at least one some of the controverted matters that have been aired on this thread.
Pageantmaster at #64,
Thank you for this defence of Anglicanism. Very well put.
RE: “The only objection I’ve had to her personal comments is that for a long time she went about claiming that she’d been banned by SF and didn’t know why—which was odd since we almost always happily blazon the reasons for any revocation of commenting privileges to the skies in the comments and couples such things with previous public warnings—and the two blog names she commented on are still and have always been “open for businessâ€â€”at least over at SF. So no banning ever occurred—most likely “user error†I expect.”
Good grief — “never mind” — the woman is *still* running around claiming that she was banned, when her blog names [two of them that I found over at SF] are completely and entirely unbanned and have never been so.
I can’t imagine why she would repeatedly and persistently lie like that. SF bloggers have always been thrilled and open about folks they’ve banned — never been ashamed of revoking commenting privileges for the trolls and the OCD off-topic commenters. Why on earth would Alice Linsley repeatedly assert — for years now — that she has been banned at SF when obviously she has not been banned at all.
At first I had postulated user error — she forgot her password or user name or something. But now . . . it’s obviously something more.
Ah well . . . if it’s needed to establish “martyrdom cred” to claim falsely that one has been banned at a blog, then there you are.
You were right Teatime — “meowy” she was, I suppose. I’m genuinely surprised, but anger and bitterness can do strange things, I suppose.
One of the most bizarre incidents at SF ever — a commenter running around the blogosphere proudly claiming a banning that didn’t happen, and when corrected, continuing to assert it.
Sarah, what would I lie about that?
For 2 years I’ve tried from time to time to log on and couldn’t even get a new password. Today I tried again and voila… I’m able to get a new password and log on. Strange.
RE: “Sarah, what would I lie about that?”
I postulated a reason above — “martyrdom cred”? Who knows. I didn’t think — for the past several years that you trumpeted about it periodically — that you were lying, just demonstrating user error.
But then — after my comment above at #41, which was [i]crystal clear[/i], you said the following:
[blockquote]# T19 is a great informational site.
Re-read the comments there and you will see that Sarah essentially admits to banning me at Stand Firm.[/blockquote]
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2011/04/growing-consensus-that-wo-must-be.html
Breathtakingly dishonest.
But no longer surprising, I suppose. I’ve had a month to get used to the idea.
wow Sarah…I’ve followed these links. I suppose I could be to blame for part of this. When Alice first started complaining that I banned her I assumed: 1. that she had in fact been banned and that 2. it was because she had been following her habitual ocd habit of inserting WO into every single conversation.
So on those assumptions I told her that I did not ban her but that she must have been banned for the above reasons.
Now I find out that she was never banned at all and that it was just her inability to figure out how to log on etc…wow. Just wow.
and now she continues to lie about the whole thing. Amazing.
Thanks, Matt, for acccepting your role in this confusion.
Why was Fr. J. Scott Newman’s comment (#65) deleted? He said, “The primary category mistake of most Anglicans seems to be a refusal to accept the Principle of Non-Contradiction. For example, either sodomy is a grave sin or the foundation of a sacrament, but it can’t be both. Or, either it is possible that women have the capacity to receive presbyteral and episcopal ordination or they do not, but it can’t be both. Let’s forgot for a moment the authority of Apostolic Tradition which every Catholic must believe is an intrinsic part of the Gospel (no sola Scriptura for us), when a foundational principle of right reason like Non-Contradiction is routinely denied in practice if not in theory, then the only thing left is raw will to power. Hence the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Kyrie eleison.”
Why not address substance at the blog? It is childish to me with claim that I am a liar with a martyr complex. It is a smoke screen. And it is untrue. You might consult an attorney about the liability of making such claims on the internet.
Matt and Sarah, you’ve had your fun. But for the record, I didn’t lie. It was a matter of making assumptions on my part. Stand Firm has a reputation for banning people, and when I couldn’t log on to comment, I assumed that I was banned. This assumption was reinforced by Matt’s communication to me that HE didn’t bann me. I then assumed that it was Sarah, but in fact, the problem was that I hadn’t tried to comment at either SF or T19 for so long, I had forgotten that my email address had changed. Once I corrected that and received a new password, I was able to log on.
Please forgive me if I have offended you. Apparently I have, and I must be dense, because I’m not sure what I said or did to make you both so furious with me.