One of the marks of bold leadership is clarity. The faith we proclaim is the truth as it is revealed in Holy Scripture, not a human invention, and it presents us with a choice between two ways. One leads to life, the other to death. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls those who would follow him to enter by the narrow gate, not the wide gate that leads to destruction, (Matthew 7:13,14) and I believe it is significant that his warning about false prophets follows in the next verse. This is what false teaching in the Anglican Communion today is like. It is the wide gate that accommodates secular permissiveness and breaches biblical boundaries in doctrine and morals.
After the praise that greeted the news that Oxford University is to honour the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States with an honorary Doctorate in Divinity, it was helpful to be reminded of the sober facts in the Statement issued by the Global South Primates Steering Committee last week. It was recognized that ”˜the fabric of the Communion was torn at its deepest level as a result of the actions taken by The Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church in Canada since 2003’ and the Communion’s London based institutions were described as ”˜dysfunctional’.
The breadth of the wide gate can be dangerously appealing as an easy choice, avoiding the need for theological discernment and church discipline. This is why I have already written a response (http://gafcon.org/news/a-response-to-the-statement-by-the-archbishops-of-canterbury-and-york) earlier this month to the Statement of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York about pastoral care for people who engage in same sex relationships.
Sadly, the lack of clarity in that statement about the biblical understanding of such relationships has been repeated in the pastoral guidance issued subsequently by the Church of England’s House of Bishops as same sex ”˜marriage’ becomes legal in England and Wales next month. While the Church’s official teaching on marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman is affirmed, it is effectively contradicted by the permission given for prayers to be said for those entering same sex ’marriages’.
More commendable clarity and boldness from the GFCA chairman. Very welcome indeed in that way. This is not a time for waffling or compromise. It is time for a loud, ringing, clear bugel call; otherwise, who will come forth to do battle for the gospel? (ala 1 Cor. 14:8). There will, of course, be a proper time for making peace and rebuilding relationships, but that is AFTER the war is fought and won, and the enemies of the true gospel within Anglicanism have been fully routed and sent packing. I mean that literally.
++Wabukala is absolutely right that because the previous attempts at mending the tear in the fabric of the Communion have been thwarted and proven totally inadequate, it is time to get more radical. It is high time to stop valueing a superficial and unreal institutional unity over actual unity, which is always grounded in a common understanding of core doctrine and a faithful adherence to the true gospel and the apostolic tradition, as we Anglicans have received it. So far so good.
However, I will again wave a yellow flag as a cautionary warning that reliance on our past formularies, including the 39 Articles, the classic 1662 BCP, and the Ordinal (but also including the Lambeth Quardrilateral, which isn’t mentioned often enough), those old formularies will NOT be adequate for that present purpose. That’s for two key reasons. First and foremost, because those cherished formularies were written with other controversies and circumstances in mind and they fail to address directly the chief heresy of our time, which is theological relativism (and its corollary, moral antinomianism. We must have the courage of our forebears in the faith and dare to exclude explicitly and clearly the chief way that the Christian faith is being subverted and perverted from within the Church in our time. That is, as Paul excluded the Judaizers, and Irenaeus the Gnostics, and Athanasius the Arians, and Augustine the Pelagians, so we must have the guts and will to exclude the relativists and antinomians in the name of Christ.
That is the first and great reason for coming up with a new confession of faith as confessing Anglicans of the 21st century. And a second is like unto it. The Jerusalem Declaration is also inadequate to meet the needs of our time because while it fails to exclude clearly enough the heretics in our midst, it also implicitly fails to include true Christians and authentic Anglicans of the catholic sort who would be marginalized, if not altogether excluded, by a narrow interpretation of the 39 Articles in particular. As I’ve said before on T19, the Articles represent where Anglicanism stood in 1571, but not where Anglicanism stands today, especially on this side of 1833 and the Catholic Revival. The Articles represent the FIRST word on Anglican doctrine, not the last word, or even the definitive word. Indeed, the Articles badly need updating in our time, in the same way that the BCP has been repeatedly updated since 1559 and in the same way that the Authorized Version of the Bible (KJV) has been repeatedly updated since 1611. For example, as I’ve said repeatedly on T19, the infamous Article 29 is simply and flatly unacceptable to Anglo-Catholics, or anyone else who believes in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Therefore, we desperately need the Anglican equivalent of Vatican II, where the bishops can hammer out new formularies that are fit for our time, that will include Anglo-Catholics, while excluding heretics who have sold their birthright, the classical Christian inheritance of doctrine, discipline, and worship, for a lousy bowl of putrid relativist soup, vainly seeking to appease a Global North society that has turned its back on Christ and the true faith.
David Handy+
My sense of the GAFCON chairman’s response is similar. This is what I expect from leaders who are authentic, biblically faithful and crystal clear about their faith. Excellent indeed!
David Handy+, Your ideas for reforming Anglicanism never cease to amaze me and make me think about how best to reform it. If only our bishops cared as much about reforming Anglicanism as you obviously do. Instead they write statements of how so and so is soo insensitive to our needs and how he needs to do what *they* want.
Dr. Handy, I am curious exactly what you might have in mind with an Anglican “Vatican II”. Would the Global South be in charge and those ABs who are not Christians be excluded? If that happens it will essentially be the declaration of a New Church; but if you invite the heretics, nothing will get done. Also, please explain how you would alter Article XXIX? I am not an expert, but I don’t believe the folks who wrote it were worried about Anglo Catholics in the Anglican Communion as much as they were concerned with the doctrine of transubstantiation, which as you know at the time of the Reformation, had much more to do with how Grace is received, and ultimately the Roman Church’s ability to tax and to intervene in temporal politics, than it has to do with actual eucharistic practice. I am not in any way critical of your ideas, just curious how you/we would make it work.
Thank you Archbishop Eliud. God bless you.
David & David, just for clarification, is it Article 29 you are talking about or 28? 28 is the one dealing with transubstantiation.
“Not long before his assassination, Archbishop Janani [Luwum] said to the great evangelist Festo Kivengere, “They are going to kill me. I am not afraidâ€. It is my passion that the GAFCON movement will inspire courageous Christ-centred leadership such as this throughout the Communion in these troubled times. ”
Bishop Festo visited Australia in the 1970s, preaching about the experience under Idi Amin and the martyrdom of ++Luwum. He inspired a generation. It probably didn’t seem possible in the dark days of Idi Amin’s oppression, but the Lord has used the witness of Ugandan Anglicans powerfully all over the world.
David Keller (#3),
Thanks for asking, and so respectfully, for clarification of my provocative #1. As #5 also shows, I’m sure you aren’t the only one who finds such comments confusing, perplexing, and even perhaps impossibly idealistic or utopian. Alas, a full and adequate answer to your entirely appropriate questions would go well beyond the bounds of a blog comment, and take us far afArield from the topic of this thread. Nonetheless, I’ll attempt a relatively brief sketch of the general direction a more adequate answer would take.
Let’s start with the simpler matter, which is the highly problematic nature of the classic 39 Articles as a contemporary standard for Doctrine within Anglicanism since 1833. I fully agree with the GFCA that we need to recover and restore the confessional basis of Anglicanism by renewing our commitment to a common understanding of the core doctrines of the Christian faith, as we Anglicans have received them. Please note that what I’m calling for is an UPDATING of the Articles, not gutting or replacing them, or relegating them to the historical dustbin as mere relics from our past, as has all too often been done in recent generations. There are certain articles (e.g., 6 and 20) that cry out for significant nuancing in light of our greater knowledge of the nature of Holy Scripture and the complex evolution of Holy Tradition since the rise of modern (centrist) biblical and theological scholarship. However, it is my conviction (FWIW) that Article 29 is an exception to the general rule. It is beyond mere nuancing. If it is to be salvaged at all, it will have to be completely rewritten, because it is seriously in error on the matter of the objectivity of the Eucharistic presence, which is a core doctrine of classical Christianity.
IOW, the problem has nothing to do with the Reformation era dispute over the Western Scholastic (medieval) doctrine of Transubstantiation (contra Ross in #5). Rather, it has everything to do with the 16th century dispute between the Lutheran and Reformed wings of Protestantism over the nature of the Eucharistic presence. Usually the Articles take care to try to include the Lutheran viewpoint along with the dominant Reformed stance, but there are places where such a compromise position is logically impossible and you have to take one side or the other. Thus, e.g., in the minor matter of the numbering of the Ten Commandments, the Articles clearly follow the Reformed instead of the Lutheran custom, and rightly so (you can’t have it both ways, but the whole matter is clearly peripheral). Not so with the key doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which the consensus of the Fathers shows is indeed a CORE doctrine.
By the time that Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1658, a stark difference had already emerged between the Lutheran and Reformed camps and a wide gulf was apparent in their respective approaches to sacramental theology. Lutherans, holding firmly to the Real Presence, rightly affirmed that “the Wicked” and those “void of a lively faith,” (to use the language of Art. 29) do indeed partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, since it is objectively there after the bread and wine have been consecrated, only they do so to their harm or even damnation instead of to their benefit. The Swiss (and South German and Dutch and English) Reformed went beyond that and denied that the wicked and unbelieving received Christ in the eucharist at all, holding to a more subjective understanding of how Christ is present in the Eucharist. In this case, the English reformers backed the wrong horse and made the wrong choice.
More to follow.
David Handy+
Continuation of my #7.
First, let me correct an obvious typo, I meant Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, not 1658. But I bring her up because she actually played a very significant role in the formulation of the Articles, just as she did in the revising of the BCP in 1559. In both cases, she made few interventions, but the ones she chose to make were highly strategic, and very beneficial (IMHO), preventingis the English Church from becoming even more one-sidedly Protestant than it did (to the dismay of the Puritans). A vital historical fact that even many Anglican clergy don’t know (because the Articles have been so thoroughly neglected in most seminary training in recent times) is that when ++Mathew Parker revised the earlier 42 Articles of Thomas Cranmer in 1562, and when the Convocations of Canterbury and York approved them in 1563, Elizabeth made the highly significant decision to veto the notorious Article 29. As a conse2uence, from 1563 to 1571, when she unfortunately reversed herself, Anglicanism had only 38 Articles, not 39. Let it be noted that here we have a case where a layperson, and a lay woman at that, showed more wisdom than the whole HoB in the CoE!
It’s also highly significant that at least one English bishop in Elizabeth’s time, +Cheney of Cloucester, the most catholic of the initial batch of Elizabethan bishops, steadfastly refused to sign the wrong-headed Article 29 and yet was allowed to continue in office (he was providentially sick the day the Articles were approved by Parliament in 1571, and he was never made to sign on to #29 at any time thereafter). Let it also be noted that there has thus been a tendency to allow a good deal of freedom in the interpretation of the Articles from the very beginning of the Elizabethan Settlement.
More could and needs to be said about this complicated matter, but I’ll move on your other question(s), David, in your #3. How in the world would an Anglican equivalent to Vatican II work, since we are so hopelessly divided theologically and we have no central magisterium in Anglicanism? (at least not yet). And even if such an unlikely event were to happen, by God’s grace, would such an Anglican Vatican II (hmm, perhaps known as Abuja I or Nairobi I or Singapore I?) amount to, as you put it, the start of “a New Church?”
I’ll reserve my answer to those key and appropriate questions for my next and final installment.
David Handy+
Further continuation of my #7 and 8.
Finally, David, let me sketch an even briefer sketch of how I’d answer your entirely apt questions about the feasibility, or even the desirability, of an Anglican Vatican II.
Is my dream of an Anglican equivalent to Vatican II hopelessly idealistic? Well, that remains to be seen. I readily grant that you aren’t the only person to wonder about that. I do so myself. I can only hope that it will somehow be possible someday, and sooner rather than later. Or (IMHO) Anglicanism is doomed. And I do mean that it’s Anglicanism, as an ism, as a distinctive Protestant-Catholic hybrid, that is doomed, and not just the Anglican Communion as we have known it up to this point.
But of course, that raises one of the central issues in the whole debate over the future of Anglicanism. Put in a nutshell, is Anglicanism merely the English form of Protestantism, so that Anglicanism is, in effect, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Protestantism (as many people both inside and outside of Anglicanism suppose). Or is Anglicanism something more than that? Is it a real alternative to both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism? Is Anglicanism better seen as being truly sui generis, as an authentic synthesis of plain vanilla Protestantism and papal style Catholicism that has its own unique traits (and not necessarily in a Via Media way, but in a paradoxical, multi-dimensional way)? Clearly, as an advocate of “3-D Christianity,” I favor the latter view, but I know that I’m in the minority among Anglicans today worldwide, not least in Africa.
MichaelA has graciously chosen to ignore my comments on this thread so far, but it’s worth pointing out that there are factions within the GFCA that are really incompatible, and that is a harsh and grim reality that needs to be honestly faced, and the sooner the better (IMHO). Namely, the Neo-Puritan sort of Anglicanism that MichaelA and the Sydney tradition honorably represents is in the end simply incompatible with the Neo-Patristic sort of Anglo-Catholicism that I represent. Oil and water can’t be made to mixn the . They will inevitably separate. There are leaders in the GFCA movement, not least the admirable champion of orthodoxy +Peter Jensen as General Secretary of the Primates’ Council, who are deeply committed to a thoroughly Protestant agenda and wish to see global Anglicanism become like Sydney, consistently low church and even Puritan. There are others of us who are strongly allergic to that Neo-Puritan agenda and want no part of it.
Since that is the case, like it or not, what are the realistic chances that even the orthodox majority of worldwide Anglicanism could gather and pull off the equivalent of Vatican II?? I don’t even mention the apostate segment of Anglicanism, alluded to your #3, David, as yes, they would indeed be excluded, not in a pre-emptive way, by fiat, but by some other method (there are various possibilities, but I won’t go into that here). I mean, GAFCON II in Nairobi didn’t even include the whole Global South, so how could an even more ambitious council possibly be made t?o work? And even if by some miracle a real Anglican COUNCIL were to be convoked and reach major agreements of an unprecedented kind, by what possible mechanism could its decrees be enforced, since we live in a post-colonial era, when the authority of Crown and Parliament can’t, and shouldn’t, be expected to do that enforcement? Well, all I’ll say here is that we desperately NEED such an Anglican global council (i.e., a real council that can make binding decisions that apply worldwide and trump mere provincial synods). Maybe it is impossible, and I’m just a hopelessly utopian dreamer, a Don Quixote kind of guy on a private quest of my own imagining, jousting with theologicalA windmills. But I sure hope not.
Which leads into the second and final question. If by some miracle an Anglican equivalent to Vatican II should ever take place, as unlikely as it must seem, would this amount to the start of “a New Church?” Well, I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. Personally, I’d say that it would amount to…
you guessed it,
a New Reformation.
It would amount to, using an American political analogy, a new Constitutional Convention for Anglicanism, again, as an ism. Yes, it would doubtless represent a clear and emphatic break with the institutional wineskins of the Anglican Communion, as we’ve known it heretofore. It would in fact represent a whole new Settlement for Anglicanism, replacing the obsolete Elizabethan Settlement that has served us well for 450 years but has now run its course and become a hindrance to us today instead of a help, a liability instead of an asset. For that venerable old Elizabethan Settlement was inextricably bound up with Christendom assumptions that are now clearly obsolescent and even counter-productive in a post-Constantinian, even post-Christian social context in the Global North.
Does that amount to the creation of A “New Church?” Well, some folks might think so, but I don’t. It does amount to the re-invention of Anglicanism, but I myself don’t consider that the same thing at all. But then, I’m an ardent advocate for the tragic necessity of what I love to call the New Reformation.
After all, as our Lord and Master has warned us, potent new wine sometimes demands new institutional wineskins. Trying futilely to
patch the old wineskins just leads to disaster.
David Handy+
Hi David Handy+
[blockquote] 1. “MichaelA has graciously chosen to ignore my comments on this thread so far…” [/blockquote]
There’s nothing gracious about it, I fear. Its just that when you write on this topic I don’t take your posts seriously.
For example, take the following conspiracy theory:
[blockquote] 2. “There are leaders in the GFCA movement, not least the admirable champion of orthodoxy +Peter Jensen as General Secretary of the Primates’ Council, who are deeply committed to a thoroughly Protestant agenda and wish to see global Anglicanism become like Sydney, consistently low church and even Puritan.” [/blockquote]
A brief study of the history of the Anglican Church in Australia (and learning a bit about what “puritan” actually means in this context) would demonstrate the extreme improbability of such an agenda.
Your real problem is that you think Sydney should be treated as a pariah, and it clearly isn’t. What you rightly call “the orthodox majority” in the communion are not clones of Sydney and not in any danger of becoming so; but for the most part they are quite happy to deal with Sydney as a fellow orthodox Anglican entity. You don’t have to like that, but it’s the way things are.
[blockquote] 3. “The Jerusalem Declaration is also inadequate to meet the needs of our time because while it fails to exclude clearly enough the heretics in our midst, it also implicitly fails to include true Christians and authentic Anglicans of the catholic sort who would be marginalized, if not altogether excluded, by a narrow interpretation of the 39 Articles in particular.” [/blockquote]
Anyone can be marginalized by a “narrow interpretation” of any document. Your real issue, which you won’t acknowledge, is that so many anglo-catholics are able to live with the 39 Articles, and you don’t like that. This comes out more clearly where you write:
[blockquote] 4. “For example, as I’ve said repeatedly on T19, the infamous Article 29 is simply and flatly unacceptable to Anglo-Catholics, or anyone else who believes in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist”. [/blockquote]
The problem is that you forgot to tell many anglo-catholics. There are quite a few of them in ACNA who obviously don’t call Article 29 “flatly unacceptable”, and I note that Fr Robert Hart, who I believe is the Canon theologian of the Anglican Catholic Church does not appear to consider it so either. As he writes in a dissertation on Article 29 at http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/laymens-guide-to-thirty-nine-articles.html:
[blockquote] “Therefore, to dismiss this Article due to some scrupulous sensitivity to such issues as transubstantiation or consubstantiation, or other related and cherished ideas, is to miss the whole point it makes about salvation, that is about one’s fellowship with Christ. It removes the need to balance Christ’s own words in John chapter six with words He spoke earlier: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:15).” It removes the need to take into account the warning of St. Paul as he wrote to the Corinthians. The danger is indeed great for those who lack the indivisible requirements of repentance and faith.” [/blockquote]
You will note also from the comments that his regular readers (who are almost all a/c from the continuum) don’t seem to have a problem with his analysis, and they are well read enough in the Church Fathers to realise the patristic basis for Article 29.
[blockquote] 5. “However, it is my conviction (FWIW) that Article 29 is an exception to the general rule. It is beyond mere nuancing. If it is to be salvaged at all, it will have to be completely rewritten, because it is seriously in error on the matter of the objectivity of the Eucharistic presence, which is a core doctrine of classical Christianity.” [/blockquote]
My conviction (FWIW) is that you are probably reading far more into this article than is actually there, and you don’t seem familiar with what the Church Fathers actually taught. But whatever, this is all part of your argument that anglo-catholics find the article abhorrent, which comes back to the issue I highlighted above – many clearly do not, and for those that do, I doubt you could find wording that would satisfy them and at the same time satisfy most other Anglicans. So let’s not pretend this is an issue of being inclusive – it is simply a matter of picking and choosing who you want in your movement. 🙂
[blockquote] 6. “Not so with the key doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which the consensus of the Fathers shows is indeed a CORE doctrine.” [/blockquote]
Even to the extent that is accurate, it doesn’t support your arguments about Article 29, which is not nearly as radical as you try to make it out to be.
[blockquote] 7. “Is my dream of an Anglican equivalent to Vatican II hopelessly idealistic? Well, that remains to be seen. I readily grant that you aren’t the only person to wonder about that. I do so myself. I can only hope that it will somehow be possible someday, and sooner rather than later. Or (IMHO) Anglicanism is doomed.” [/blockquote]
You already know my position on this. I think that Anglicanism would have been doomed if your solution had been put into place prior to 1998, but by the grace of God our decentralized conciliarity has preserved orthodox Anglicanism in most of the communion.
[blockquote] 8. “But of course, that raises one of the central issues in the whole debate over the future of Anglicanism. Put in a nutshell, is Anglicanism merely the English form of Protestantism, so that Anglicanism is, in effect, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Protestantism (as many people both inside and outside of Anglicanism suppose).” [/blockquote]
I suggest virtually no-one supposes that. You could say that the Roman Catholics do – but they lump you and all anglo-catholics very firmly into the “protestant” boat too, whether you like it or not!
MichaelA (#10),
I wasn’t trying to bait you into responding, but I’m glad you did. As usual, your post is illuminting, lucid, and substantial. I particularly welcome the Robert Hart citation as a helpful contribution to the discussion. I almost always find your comments stimulating and instructive, and this one was no exception.
I won’t try to offer a rebuttal of your arguments, Michael, as this would likely take us to far afield from the topic of this thread. You and I obviously live on different planets theologically, with vastly differrent axiomatic assumptions when it comes to the fundamental differences that separate “liturgical Protestants” like yourself from “biblical catholics” like myself. However, I will again happily acknowledge that I regard you (and other Sydney Anglicans of the hardcore, ultra-Protestant sort) as not only brothers in Christ, but also as valuable allies in the fight for the true gospel within Anglicanism. We may live on different theological planets, but at least we live in the same religious solar system, circling around the same sun, who is the Son of God. Not so with our “progressive” foes on the Left, who don’t even seem to live in the same galaxy, but are pseudo-Christians, like the heretical PB, to cite only the most obvious and notorious example.
I’m sorry, Michael, if it seems that I wish for you Sydney types to be treated as “pariahs” within global Anglicanism. I have no such wish. I wouldn’t even want the revisionists as heretics treated that way (if I understand you correctly). Yes, heretical leaders who are wolves in sheep’s clothing should be shunned (Rom. 16:17-18 etc.), but at the same time we have to remember that we aren’t wrestling against flesh and blood enemies, but against demonic powers and the deceitful “wiles” of the Father of Lies, who has taken them captive. Despite my disdain for the PB of TEC and her ilk, I see her as a spiritual POW, who despeately needs to be rescued from error and bondage. I’m sure you would agree with that anyway.
I have no personal animus toward you, or the honorable +Peter Jensen, or Dr. Mark Thompson of Moore Theological College, etc. However, I do admit that I am strongly allergic to Purtianism in all its forms, including the “Neo-Puritanism” that I discern in so much of Sydney-style Anglicanism. My concderns are rooted in a deep-seated fear and suspicion that the worldwide GFCA movement is in grave danger of unwittingly taking an instinctively Protestant approach that could easily end up excluding more catholic-minded Anglicans like me who find the extreme Protestentism of the 39 Articles highly problematic.
Just so it’s clear: I don’t blame you for failing to take me seriously at times, Michael. I’m sure you aren’t alone that way. I freely admit that some of my wilder proposals (like my continual plea for the establishment of some sort of global Supreme Court for Anglicanism with binding trans-provincial powers to over-rule the unbiblical actions of rogue provinical synods or my call to revive the ancient order of public pentents) are currently such unusual, minority opeionios that they may well appear to be idiosyncratic. Time will tell if I’m as much of a foolish Don Quixote kind of guy as I must appear to many readers.
However, with the encouragement of some readers like SC blu cat lady above, I will continue to act as a lonely voice crying in the wilderness. I stand by what I wrote above.
David Handy+
“You and I obviously live on different planets theologically, with vastly differrent axiomatic assumptions when it comes to the fundamental differences that separate “liturgical Protestants†like yourself from “biblical catholics†like myself.”
That may well be the case for yourself personally. But I find far less separates me from most “biblical catholics”.
“I have no personal animus toward you, or the honorable +Peter Jensen, or Dr. Mark Thompson of Moore Theological College, etc.”
I never thought you did.
“My concderns are rooted in a deep-seated fear and suspicion that the worldwide GFCA movement is in grave danger of unwittingly taking an instinctively Protestant approach that could easily end up excluding more catholic-minded Anglicans like me who find the extreme Protestentism of the 39 Articles highly problematic.”
The whole point of my post is that many of the “more catholic-minded Anglicans” don’t find the 39 articles to constitute “extreme protestantism”.
OK, MichaelA.
I appreciate the amicable tone of your latest comment. Let me return the favor. I freely grant that many “biblical catholics” within Anglicanism don’t find the Articles particularly problematic, the way that I do. However, it’s a plain fact that many others do, and always have since 1833.
Perhaps the following explanations/corrections may help clarify matters. I will now freely concede that I overstated the case when I brashly asserted that Article 29 is “flatly unacceptable to Anglo-Catholics.” You rightly forced me to quality that statement, and I will do so here. What I should’ve said is that no Anglo-Catholic who is aware that Article 29 implicitly denies the core doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist can assent to the teaching of the English reformers on that point. But as this thread attests, there are many generally well-informed Anglicans, including some Anglo-Catholics, who are unaware of that fact. I regard such ignorance as a symptom of how unduly neglected the teaching of the Articles has been in many Anglican circles for a very long time. I lament that ignorance and neglect.
For example, I welcome the recent commentary on the 39 Articles by +John Rodgers. Entitled Essential Truths for Christians: A Commentary on the Anglican 39 Articles, the former TSM prof (and dean) has published the only substantial commentary on the Articles to appear in many years. Despite my distaste for the Articles due to their one-sidedly Protedstant nature (an understandable, if regrettable, feature of the fact that they are a Reformation era product), I agree with the leaddership of the GFCA that we have to recover the confessional basis of Anglicanism, and that STARTS by recovering an adequate understanding of the classic Articles (although it can’t end there).
Secondly, and finally, the division of opinion about the Articles among “biblical catholics” within Anglicanism that you’ve pointed out, Michael, is one of many signs of a more general division within the catholic wing. And that key difference is the stark contrast between those Anglo-Catholics who are “traditionalists” (in a very precise sense that I’ll soon define) and those of us who aren’t traditionalists in that technical sense.
What am I getting at? Well, Jaroslav Pelikan summed it up beautifully in 1983 with his brilliant two-part one-liner:
Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.
Spot on. Traditionalism, as Pelikan and I use the word, is an ism, a basically uncritical adherence to everything inherited from the past. So what I describe as “traditionalist” Anglo-Catholicism is typified by a complete rejection not only of WO, but also of the 1979 BCP and “happy clappy” music, etc., etc. “Traditionalist” Anglo-Catholicism is deeply entrenced in many places, e.g., in the ACNA dioceses of Ft. Worth and Quincy, and in the FiF movement, as well as in some of the Continuing Churches. I belong to a very different segment of Anglo-Catholicism, typified by diocese like Albany and Dallas, which unfortunately are still lingering in TEC.
As you will doubtless be aware, MichaelA, that gulf between “traditionalist” and non-traditionalist Anglo-Catholics has been clear for at least 125 years, when the divide surfaced clearly when the great collection of essays knwon as Lux Mundi was published in 1889 by a group of Oxford dons, led by my hero Charles Gore (then principal of Pusey House, and a monk, but not yet a bishop). That highly influential, but also highly polarizing, collection of essays marked the careful, critical embrace of modern, centrist biblical and theological scholarship by Gore and his colleagues, to the dismay of more conservative Anglo-Catholics like Pusey’s disciple and biographer, H. P. Liddon.
FWIW, the stream or trajectory of Anglo-Catholicism that I identify with is the stream that begins more with Newman than Keble or Pusey, and flows through Gore rather than Liddon, and then through Edwyn Hoskyns and Michael Ramsey, rather than say through Gregory Dix and Kenneth Kirk, down to the present. Alas, the catholic wing of Anglicanism has never been all that unified in various ways, except in its abhorrence of Puritanism, or the kind of ultra-Protestantism associated with such hardcore Protestant Anglicans as +J. C. Ryle, or Sydney’s venerable T. C. Hammond.
I think I’ll bow out of this thread on that more congenial note.
David Handy+
Now you are saying that you represent the “traditional” anglo-catholics, and those who disagree with you represent the “traditionalist” anglo-cathcolis – I disagree with you about that also!
I’ve been lurking through this exchange, and I also disagree. Labels can be confusing and sometimes unhelpful. I consider myself a “Prayer Book Catholic” Anglican. Whether that’s a “real” Anglo Catholic is something I don’t know. However, claiming that “traditional” Anglo Catholics accept the ordination of women (which I don’t, and here I’m in agreement with the evangelicals of Sydney) and the 1979 Prayer Book, whereas “traditionalist” ACs are ignorant of the Articles and have “a basically uncritical adherence to everything inherited from the past” is pretty extreme, it seems to me, and not consistent with some of the very thoughtful and deeply Christian Anglo Catholics I have known and read about.
What you mean, Fr. Handy, with respect, is that you can’t reconcile yourself to the Articles about the Holy Communion. When I receive the elements consecrated with Christ’s word, “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood,” I know what I am receiving.