AGAIN: Turning from the ancient to the modern, can you give us an overview of the state of Anglicanism today? Orthodox Christians in America need to know about the Anglican communion in order to have a fruitful dialogue with individual Anglicans and Episcopalians and with their parishes as they live out their own witness of the Orthodox faith.
TM: It is important for me to explain just a little bit how the Anglican compromise has resulted in such interesting things in terms of structure, which has so much to do with the current problems. The more conservative elements of Anglicanism tend to be its most Protestant elements, and its most liberal elements are usually people who think of themselves as highly catholic. . . .
The heart of the Anglican compromise boils down to putting St. John Chrysostom and John Calvin in the same pew. But neither one of those men want to be there. There are things on which they do not agree with each other, and they would not compromise. And yet the Anglican compromise tried to have both sides of a Protestant and ancient equation be equal. You simply can’t pull that off.
People need to understand that there are very strong parts of Anglicanism that are rigorously Protestant. Some of the liveliest Anglicanism you will meet in the world is thoroughly Reformed, very Calvinistic. This is the John Stott and J. I. Packer wing of low-church Anglicanism. In that context, you will find a heavy emphasis on congregationalism. They will be very Protestant, and this is probably the most conservative and biblical part of modern Anglicanism. That’s where, for the most part, you had the missionary societies that went to the Third World. Then you have the traditional branch that would be called Anglo-Catholic, which would deny or water down a lot of the Protestant side of the compromise and put a much heavier, more Roman emphasis on ecclesiology, on the role of the bishop, on church tradition as a part of interpreting Scripture as opposed to sola scriptura””a very consciously Catholic element. . . .
Anglicans are highly skilled and genuinely talented in compromise. When you say that Anglicanism is the church of the via media””the middle way””that implies a kind of compromise position between two camps that often don’t want to compromise. And on moral and social issues, what you have ended up with is a never-ending march to the left””because you’re constantly compromising on the church traditions of the ages. This steadily, slowly but surely, pulls you to the theological left on critical issues. . . .
Episcopal bishop William Frey used to say that Anglicans have been doing this via media theological method for so long they can’t stop. As he put it, if one side says Jesus is Lord, and the other side says Jesus is not Lord, the Anglican compromise is Jesus is occasionally Lord. He meant that as a joke, but you can see that in the history of the Frey Amendment. [Editor’s note: This was a failed attempt by traditionalists to make a doctrinally conservative addition to Episcopal Church law.] Frey said Episcopal clergy must not be sexually active outside of marriage. That leads to a theological statement: Sex outside of marriage is sin. But the other side says sex outside of marriage is not always a sin. Which means the Anglican compromise is sex outside of marriage is occasionally sin. The left isn’t happy, and the right isn’t happy, but you have moved in the leftward direction. You’ve compromised the absolute truth of an ancient doctrine. That’s how the mechanism works.
Right now, what we have is two groups of true believers who don’t want to compromise. It’s so interesting that sexuality ended up being the line in the sand, when it could have been””and I argued it should have been””the Resurrection. Why when Anglican bishops began to deny historic doctrines related to the Incarnation and Resurrection and salvation through Christ alone, and other critical doctrines, why didn’t the war break out then? Whereas now it has broken out over sexuality.
AGAIN: Why do you think that is so?
TM: My own hunch is that first of all sexuality gets covered in the media, whereas a doctrine about theological language is harder for the press to cover. The other thing frankly is that the theological left has learned how to state its beliefs about Resurrection and Incarnation in a way that sounds OK. And, they’re very hard to pin down. In other words, you could talk about the hope of the Resurrection, but you’ve redefined what all the words mean. You need to understand that Anglicanism defines itself as being united by certain liturgical texts””but you don’t have to all agree on what the words mean. A lot of Anglicans will say it’s important that when they say the Creed, instead of saying “I believe,” most Anglican churches say, “We believe.” Meaning the body affirms this, but it is not necessary for the individual to do the same.
AGAIN: Since issues of sexuality have been what has sparked the current conflicts, though, do you have thoughts in general on how that is playing out? Where are the lines being drawn? And, to what extent are the issues of sexuality bound up with the related issues of gender in general, like say the female priesthood?
TM: For the Anglicans, sexual issues do not automatically connect with gender issues, even though Orthodox would see that they do. For a lot of Protestant Anglicans, remember that they are placing more of an emphasis on congregationalism and less on classic catholic orders. So, there are a lot of charismatic Episcopalians and evangelical Episcopalians who have no problem with the ordination of women, because their concept of priesthood is subtly different from those who see it in the full catholic sense. Even though they are conservative, the ordination of women was not a make-or-break issue for them. They don’t connect it with the transcendent, sacramental understanding of what the priesthood is, because their theology is more Protestant and more Reformed. There’s this very low church Protestant element there that can be conservative on some issues but not on others that the Orthodox would see.
AGAIN: It seems that something the Orthodox need to keep in mind in their encounters with Anglicans is that they need to be prepared to speak to two different audiences. On the one hand, you have the more Protestant wing, where you may have more agreement on questions of, say, scriptural truth and their application to social issues. And on the other hand, there is the more Catholic side of the Anglican communion, where you may have some common ground about, for example, sacramentalism and mystery in the faith.
TM: There are still conservative Anglo-Catholics, but not as many. The most vital and alive conservative elements in modern Anglicanism are charismatic or evangelical low-church Anglicans. There are still some very high-church, fully Catholic Anglicans. But I find it very interesting that modern liberal Anglicanism tends to identify much more with a high-church, liturgical smells-and-bells approach to Anglicanism.
This makes many Orthodox confused, because they see these people and they say, gosh, they even have icons in their church. We have a lot in common with them. When theologically, you may have almost nothing in common with them. And then you walk into another Anglican church, and it will be like a megachurch. There will be a rock band, and it will be very low church. The liturgy may be much more informal, but their view of morality and basic doctrines and biblical authority and ancient traditions of the Church would be much closer to the Orthodox””even though it doesn’t look like it in terms of style.
This elf’s opinion? TMatt not only “Gets Religion” but he really gets Anglicanism too!
Mattingly’s description is inadequate. I consider myself to be Anglo-Catholic.
I believe that Scripture trumps the secular rationale de jure, I believe in the content of the creeds, I believe in the ‘order’ of the Church Catholic, Calvinism does not appeal to me (by the way, was Calvin a Calvinist?), I believe that personal/local congregational ecclesiological/theological autonomy is the road to Billy Bob’s store-front church of ‘What Ever,’ I find that Anglo-Catholic liturgy provides a structure for a rich Sacremental spiritual experience, I consider the Pope to be the preeminent bishop of the Church Catholic but not my ecclesiological boss, I feel strong ecumenical bonds with individual Roman Catholics but am not Roman Catholic, I believe that personal Salvation trumps secular social issues, I believe that a person who is ‘on the road’ to personal Salvation will by the very nature of his relationship with Christ work to help those in need, I believe that the Church Catholic has its own goals and that the MDGs are the product of a corrupted secular United Nations, et cetera.
I believe that there are many many Anglo-Catholics who are orthodox Anglicans.
Bishop Frey’s comment about the Via Media echoes Cardinal Newman’s observation that the Anglican “via media” in the great Christological and Trinitarian heresies would nonetheless be heresy. Though I would agree with much of what Mr. Mattingly says, I believe with AnglicanFirst that Mattingly does underestimate the strength of Anglo-Catholicism. Lay Anglo-Catholics tend to be considerably more conservative than certain clergy who regard themselves Anglo-Catholic in their vestiture and ceremonial but who are in fact Unitarians with good taste.
#1 and #2 –
Mr. Mattingly doesn’t deny you exist, but that you are many. The charts program is down right now, but last I checked, Fort Worth and Quincy haven’t shown significant growth in years. Has San Joaquin? I know that Fort Worth actually closed a parish in a high growth suburb last year, and their main growth is in the Spanish parishes and their liberal parishes. This is not to say God can’t use the Anglo-Catholic David to slay the Affirming Catholic Goliath, but you need accept that, indeed, it’s David that you are!
Mr. Mattingly’s comments on the liturgy suggest that lex orandi lex credendi no longer applies in TEC. The law of prayer no longer equals the law of faith.
Maybe I’m projecting my own feelings, but I think most orthodox anglo-caths and anglo-evangelicals [i]want[/i] to be in the same church together.
Although the Anglo-Catholic wing of the traditional side of the Episcopal church may be small – it does appear to be the most likely to leave en masse. If San Joachin, Quincy and Fort Worth (plus the APA and the FiF affliates) are all part of a Realignment in September – it would seem that the Ango-Catholic wing of the second jurisdiction would be very large if not a majority. Am I missing something?
I am very much in agreement with “Anglican First”. I am strongly Anglo-Catholic in my love of the liturgy as a conveyor of sacramental grace and true worship in the manner of the Apostles and early church.
AND I am strongly Evangelical in my holding up of the truths of Scripture as “the word of God, written”, and the primary revelator of God’s will for us, the measure by which all other revelations — reason and/or tradition — must be judged. And I believe in evangelism and missions.
I am also Anglo-Charismatic in that I believe the gifts and fruits of the Spirit continue to this day and beyond, to strengthen the Church and the individual Christian in his/her walk with the Lord.
Praise be to God for these three threads of tradition that run through the Church and my life!
Jim Elliott <><
One has to make a distinction between “High Church” which has a high view of the Church and the sacraments and gives great weight ot the Tradition of the Church and “High Ceremonial” which uses the trappings of Anglo-catholocism, but denies the teaching that the ceremonial is supposed to represent. I know several people who call themselves “High Church” simply because they have a beautiful liturgy, but they don’t actually believe that the Church is the continuation of the Incarnation or that priests stand in [i]Persona Christi[/i]. A true “High Church” Anglican sees that the Church is the receptor of a Great Revelation and that it cannot change the content of that Revelation and that the Church is connected to other Christians at all times in all places, past, present, and future.
For High Church Anglicans, the liturgy expresses the unabtainable beauty of Heaven as we stand outside of earth and stand “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven.” True High Chruch liturgy expresses the [i]perichoresis[/i] of the Trinity. Liturgy is, for us, drama and poetry expressing the beauty of God in the best way we can.
High Ceremonial Anglicans, on the other hand, tend to be very congragationalist in their ecclesiology and believe that they can adapt the faith (not the expression of the faith, but the faith itself) to a given situation. They are even more symbolic in their faith where the Resurrection and the Trinity themselves become symbols of faith rather than the objects of faith.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I too attend an Anglo-Catholic parish. Though I wish it were different, I do not think TM is far off the mark; though real numbers would answer the question. Our congregation is a real mix theologically, but few of us would be very Orthodox. Many would say that the fullness of the liturgy makes theology irrelevant and theological discussion unnecessarily divisive.
I think TM’s comment on the nature of our compromise giving step by step victory to the progressives is dead on. Unless we can find a real strategy, are we fighting to any end, other than our own misery? Come September, Come! Will we see action then?
Good point, Phil. pecusa is infected with a high ceremonial/broad church contingent that cares nothing about sound theology. We see this in bishops and priests who like to play dress up but who believe and teach heresy.
William Scott (#8)
I disagree with those who say: “the fullness of the liturgy makes theology irrelevant and theological discussion unnecessarily divisive.”
Liturgy and theology both express each other. We express our theology in our liturgy and our liturgy in our theology. While good liturgy can stand on its own for a while, it will eventually fall when its theological foundation crumbles.
Theology is the foundation of our liturgy and our prayers. If our theology is wrong, we will be praying to a “false god.” Eventually, our liturgy will reflect our theology.
Likewise, how we worship and pray will affect our theology. It is possible to build a bad house on a good foundation, but in this case, a bad house will crack the foundation. That is not to say that low-church liturgy is bad. As an example, let’s assume that you have a good and orthodox understanding of the Trinity, but your congregation starts praying to “God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer” rather than “God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (or Holy Ghost). The first will tend (or try) (over time) to change your theology of the Trinity to a modalistic view of one god, three functions rather than one god, three persons. Likewise, if you have a modalistic view of the Trinity, you will have no objections when someone wants to take the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” language out of the liturgy so that we don’t offend feminists with patriarchial language.
Correct liturgy (whether it be high or low ceremonial) is important to correct theology and correct theology is important to correct liturgy. Within orthodox Christianity, there is a lot of room for correct liturgy and correct theology.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I think Terry Mattingly has correctly nailed the fatal flaw of Anglicanism. It’s COMPROMISE. As an evangelical Christian who worships at an Episcopal church, I find that many Anglicans/Episcopalian are far too concerned about non essentials and non-biblically mandated practices than the Apostolic teaching of the New Testament. Concerns for church architecture, liturgy, icons, incense, dioceses, hierarchical structures beyond the local church, and the like are meaningless. These issues DO NOT make the church. In fact, beyond a simple liturgy taken from the church’s synagogue heritage, the apostolic church did not have icons, incense, diocese, church buildings, etc. Personally, I believe that Jesus is in process of purging his church. It is probably good that orthodox Christians are being thrown out of their church buildings. People have placed too much emphasis on externals and non essentials. When you have to meet in school gym or a house, you can focus on the true essentials of the Christian faith, such as Jesus Christ and fellowship.
It’s very simple, Jesus said he would build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. How is the church being built? Acts 2 reveals that what when people come to faith in Jesus Christ, repent of their sins and are baptized, that are added to the church. The church is a spiritual body composed of those who have believed repented and have been baptized. The assembling of those believers together on Sunday is for instruction, edification and fellowship (of which the Eucharist is the most visible illustration of fellowship). Calling people to belief in Christ and repentance from sins is that only key to evangelism and true church growth. The Global South clearly understands this.
After people are brought to faith in Christ, they need to grow and help others to grow. This is the main job of the “clergy.†The elders of the local church has overseers are there to help believer to grow in their faith and spiritual gifts. Every believer has a function and spiritual gift for operation within the Body of Christ. Jesus Christ and the Apostles never intended super hierarchical systems like the Roman and Orthodox churches. Each church was an independent and autonomous citywide church run by a college of elders with a presiding elder, the Bishop. After the merger of church and state in the 4th century, the church brought many organizational practices that an antithetical to true evangelism and church management as the Apostles laid down. We are still paying for those mistakes today. Issues that like Anglo-Catholic, Protestant, etc are really meaningless. The question should be, do our practices conform to the practices and the principles the Apostles laid down or is this a “church” of our own creation?
-Vincent
Terry and family were members of Christ Church, Denver and he obviously knows much about the Anglican Communion from the inside.
Count me as another very conservative, high church, Anglo-Catholic. I see virtually nothing recognizable in the extreme Protestant, low church evangelical “conservative” churches. If TEC are liturgical unitarians, then the “conservative” low church evangelicals are liturgical Baptists- good folksto be sure, but at the opposite end of the Anglican spectrum from where I stand. I am very proud that Ft. Worth, Quincy, and San Juaquin are making such a principled stand for the faith, but I’m afraid that from what I see on the ground, Mr. Mattingly is correct that the reasserter movement is being dominated by the low church Protestant evangelicals out of Trinity. I fear for what the realigned “orthodox” north American province, or whatever structure evolves from the wreckage of TEC, will look like. At present, unless one is resident in one of the aforementioned diocese, the future for high church, Anglo-Catholic Anglicans looks bleak.
Evan (#13)
While high-church Anglo-Catholics have more liturically in common with the reappraising high-ceremonial Anglo-Catholics, I submit that we have more in common theologically with the low-church Anglicans. Yes, high-churchmen place more emphasis on tradition and the sacraments and ecclesiology than many low-churchmen. But we still believe in the resurrection, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, and the plain sense of the Creeds. I would rather say Morning Prayer and have a good, biblically based, sermon that urges me to live my life in closer communin with the Holy Trinity that receive communion in a church with “smells and bells” where everything is changed and the liturgy is executed in exacting detail and as perfect as it can be, but where God is not referred to personally and Jesus is just a guide for us and the Holy Spirit is a nebulous force that we can appropriate to suit our social agenda.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Curious to know what the folks here would think will happen to moderate Ango-Catholics postions if the TEC gets the boot from the AC after Sept.
#10 Phil, I think you might have understood that I was giving an example of my own Anglo-catholic parish. I disagree fully with the sentiment that “the fullness of the liturgy makes theology irrelevant and theological discussion unnecessarily divisive.â€
Those that are theologically minded in our parish tend to be liberal to progressive. This is a problem with a grand liturgy; it can be profound without requiring any particular teaching. The experience of God becomes the focus. This is no doubt the source of the protestant tendency to focus on the pulpit rather than the altar.
We are in dire need of sound teaching. The new generations will tend to think our traditional teachings are bankrupt or incomplete. They will continue to import whatever suits them.
On the contrary our teachings are rich full and true. And if engaged with faith can occupy us for more than a lifetimes worth of interest and growth, not to mention an eternities worth.
chips(#15) – can you define what you mean by “moderate Anglo-Catholics,” please?
I consider my self a “moderate” Anglo-Catholic because I agree with a lot of the theology espoused by Anglo-catholicism, but I also see and agree with a lot of what the evangelical tradition within Anglicanism teaches. Both are necessary. Borrowing from John-Paul’s anology of Eastern and Western catholicism, I think that Anglo-catholicism and Evangelical Anglicanism are two lungs within one body – you can live with only one, but the body is much healthier with two good lungs.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Phil,
I know what you mean, but I’m not entirely sure I ‘d agree. For me, Holy Communion is the essential activity of Sunday worship. That said, on vacation a couple of years back, my family and I did get up and leave rather take communion at a lovely old church on the Carolina coast where the liturgy was superbly executed (even if it was Rite II!) but the priest’s sermon betrayed him as a thoroughgoing reappraiser, putting me in no fit state to receive communion.
William (#16) – I wasn’t sure if you accepted the argument you laid out that liturgy makes theology irrelevant, that’s why I said “those who say….”
You are right in that traditional Anglo-catholicism is a very right theological tradition that has a lot to teach us about the need for community, the need for grace and the need to sacramentalize all our lives such that we become living sacraments – outward and visible signs of God’s inward and spiritual grace.
The problem with statements that say something similar to “theology doesn’t matter” is that they tend to be held and proposed by those who have wrong or no theology.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I say Amen to the comments of my brothers AnglicanFirst and Phil.
I am also Anglo-Catholic and firmly orthodox. I agree that at heart we orthodox AC’s have something more in common with the Reformed orthodox than would first meet the eye.
We are often, I think erroneously, characterized as psuedo-Romans, as in Roman Catholic in all but name without the guts to actually admit it. I have to strongly disagree. As high church as my parish is, as much as we are believe in the Catholic view of orders and sacraments etc, we can agree with evangelicals on more than the creeds and the primacy of Scripture. There are many AC’s who, while rejecting some elements of Reformed theology, have no problem accepting or finding agreement with others.
In short, we are as proudly Protestant as we are Catholic. We are not sitting on the banks of the Tiber without the will to cross. We have serious theological disagreements with Rome and find that we have at least some common ground with our Reformed bretheren.
I think from the AC standpoint there is indeed a middle point at which what seem like contradictions at the extremes can be found to be in harmony and balance. Being truly Protestant, truly Catholic, truly Orthodox and truly moderate are really, for us, different ways of describing the same thing ie coming as close to the fullest and most complete ideal of the Christian faith as can be done. We feel that there is an ideal out there that is most closely approached when we gather the good from all sides rather than reject flat out one position or the other. *
I know it doesnt make sense to everyone, but it does to us. Personally, this is only posistion on the Chuch that has ever made so much sense to me. I wouldn’t be in the Church without it.
*Please forgive me if I over-stated or garbled my case here but I hope that you get the idea anyway. The fault for this lies with me, not with the idea.
It is actually very encouraging to me to read the majority of posts on this thread, especially those from AnglicanFirst, Newbie Anglican, LibraryJim, Phillip Snyder, and StayinAglican. Terry’s responses in this interview are generally a caricature of both the historic movements and schools of thought, and the contemporary perspectives that make-up the Anglican tradition. Frankly, I’m very surprised at a number of the things he says because he is usually right on the money. For some reason, he appears to have adopted a modern reporter’s point of view, and is really analyzing only those things that rise or have risen to a certain level of social or political consequence or agitation. It’s generally disappointing. Although I think he is correct in identifying the roots of our Anglican problems in compromise, he really appears to miss that it is in HOW we’ve compromised, and especially in TEC/usa’s compromise with Enlightenment and individualist/rationalist notions from its very beginnings. He also doesn’t really address how 1662 involved very little compromise, and was certainly, in effect, very protestant-minded, puritan and presbyterian-leaning members of the C of E being shown the door.
Even in my very limited experience with Anglican and episcopal bodies and parishes just in Southern California, I have seen a tremendous amount of cross-polinization and blending of the various orthodox and traditionalist “schools” of Anglicanism. In addition, there is significant and undeniable evidence of what I would call an “incipient catholicity” among even very evangelical Anglicans that shows that they are breaking from both the ideological elements of their roots and the trendiness of American evangelicalism. However, for many of those in longstanding, more old school, very Anglican in spirituality, but evangelically-oriented parishes, this represents not so much a break in their particular sub-tradition (though it certainly is), as the restoration and fulfillment of their foundations.
As a very high Anglo-Orthodox churchman who converted from conservative “denominational” protestant evangelicalism, I have often wondered if I made the right decision when I went in the direction of traditional Anglo-Catholicism rather than becoming Eastern Orthodox. However, as the Communion crisis has intensified, I have seen a real commitment from catholic and evangelical alike to patristic wisdom and to looking to the practices of the Church of the post-Nicene epoch to sure-up the Communion’s rudder, and a growing trust from virtually all “schools” in the common mind of the all the orthodox faithful. While I am concerned about some overly pragmatic “Sola Scriptura” language that gets tossed about on occasion, I generally see most of those who might say “Amen” to it as being orthodox catholic and fully Anglican in practice.
Here’s another stab at it.
From our standpoint, where Protestanism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy are at their best and most closely approach the Christians ideals of moderation and charity is the same point at which bridging the divides between them is the most possible. I think there is a range here on either side of the ideal where Christians can disagree on the ratio and proportion of what constitutes the best approximation of this ideal. Personally, I think that orthodox Anglo-Catholicism braced and sobered with some valuable Protestant insights most closely approaches that ideal. I think this makes me a true Anglican. I think that my willingness to accept there there is an acceptable range of disagreement on this point also makes me a true Anglican.
Protestant America in the 19thC was not that friendly to beauty in worship as a path to God, except as it ocurred as a spontaneous emotional experience. Couple that with a simultaneous esthetic movement in favor of beauty for the sake of beauty, and an already developed tendency toward social elitism in the PE church, and it is not surprising that the Episcopal clergy and laity attracted a gay contingent ever since the Oxford and Ritualist movements infected it. The superficial Anglo-Catholicism of the extreme reappraising element has some of its roots in that and other roots in the number of former Roman Catholics who migrated to TEC because they thought Vatican II sholud have scrapped the theology and kept the liturgy.
I am not making a value judgement, except to say that one does not need an agenda to explain what develops from logical causes.
Hi Phil,
I meant moderates as in “our beloved moderates” – those who have not yet paid real attention or want it to go away. I would think getting kicked out of the AC would seem to be something that would make Anglo-Catholics (except those who are primarily religious reappraisers and/or political liberals think not all is well with TEC). Would such an event awaken those Anglo-Catholics into going into a second juridiction and/or would the structure and order of a second jurisdiction also help to change the equation for non-full blown reapraising Anglo-Catholics.
Last comment.
I really want to respond to what joe from old oc wrote. He said,
For me and many Anglicans, charity is closely related to compromise in the sense where compromise is wholesome and sober as in that acceptable range of disagreement that I spoke of already. This willingness to accept that range of disagreement and to compromise can be rightly said to be the genius of Anglicanism.
I have absolutely no problem with saying that even after years of watching others heap contempt on the idea. It is our gift and our treasure and the whole reason for staying in the fight to the bitter end for me. (Only once it is over can anyone say that it is over)
The problem, as I have said many times, is that the very thing that is our genius can also be our greatest weakness if we make turn that gift for compromise into an idol like TEC has done. There is no moderation for the blinded worshippers of an idol. No sacrifice is too great. There is no stop, no control, no enough.
It is not the idea that is bad. The idea worked just fine until it some people took it to an extreme. Thats when what was an effective approach to peace and unity became a mockery and a tool of division and indecision.
Instead of accepting a range of belief clustered on either side of an ideal of moderation, these people came to accept everything, every extreme. Thats when they ceased to be truly Anglican. While those orthodox Anglicans, both reformed and AC continue to be able to live and work together as a sometimes argumentative but still loving family. We prove each day that we can hang together through thick and thin over a common committment to charity. I believe we will continue to do so until this thing is over and then beyond.
Going back to one of Mattingly’s perceptive arguments, why should not St. John Chyrsostom and John Calvin sit in the same pew? I wonder if TM would see such a gap if he had not been raised a Southern Baptist? Certainly, my United Methodist background colors my perception of “Churchmanship.”
Re: #11
Vincent,
You wrote…
[blockquote]I think Terry Mattingly has correctly nailed the fatal flaw of Anglicanism. It’s COMPROMISE… Concerns for church architecture, liturgy, icons, incense, dioceses, hierarchical structures beyond the local church, and the like are meaningless.[/blockquote]
(A/O) If you think thats what Terry was saying you need to reread his article.
[blockquote]The church is a spiritual body composed of those who have believed repented and have been baptized. The assembling of those believers together on Sunday is for instruction, edification[/blockquote] and fellowship (of which the Eucharist is the most visible illustration of fellowship). Calling people to belief in Christ and repentance from sins is that only key to evangelism and true church growth. The Global South clearly understands this… After people are brought to faith in Christ, they need to grow and help others to grow. This is the main job of the “clergy.†The elders of the local church has overseers are there to help believer to grow in their faith and spiritual gifts. Every believer has a function and spiritual gift for operation within the Body of Christ. Jesus Christ and the Apostles never intended super hierarchical systems like the Roman and Orthodox churches. Each church was an independent and autonomous citywide church run by a college of elders with a presiding elder, the Bishop. After the merger of church and state in the 4th century, the church brought many organizational practices that an antithetical to true evangelism and church management as the Apostles laid down. We are still paying for those mistakes today. Issues that like Anglo-Catholic, Protestant, etc are really meaningless. The question should be, do our practices conform to the practices and the principles the Apostles laid down or is this a “church†of our own creation?”
[/blockquote]
(A/O)Your views are simply not in conformity with those of the early Christians. I would strongly encourage you to read the Fathers with an emphasis on the anti-Niceane Fathers.
P.S. The block quotes don’t seem to be working. Sorry…
Re: 26
Dale,
Calvin and St. John would not be in the same pew because both would have held the other to be a heretic. The ancient canons of the Church are quite clear in their prohibition of communicatio in sacris. This for Orthodox Christians has been even more strictly interpreted than by our brothers in the Roman Church who generally limit their application to the reception of Holy Communion.
In the fullest sense, the Three Streams that Jim Elliot describes below is my experience and I encountered them in the same order as a child in the Diocese of Colorado, as a Methodist during high school and college student at Asbury and as an Episcopal priest learning from Francis McGuire, Dennis Bennett, Larry Christensen and the Community of Christ the King.
John Wesley compromised on receiving the Holy Communion three times a week, Serving in a parish with a daily Eucharist, a monthly Ultreya and many reunion groups and bible studies in the DRG was the fullness of joy for me.
[i]I am very much in agreement with “Anglican Firstâ€. I am strongly Anglo-Catholic in my love of the liturgy as a conveyor of sacramental grace and true worship in the manner of the Apostles and early church.
AND I am strongly Evangelical in my holding up of the truths of Scripture as “the word of God, writtenâ€, and the primary revelator of God’s will for us, the measure by which all other revelations—reason and/or tradition—must be judged. And I believe in evangelism and missions.
I am also Anglo-Charismatic in that I believe the gifts and fruits of the Spirit continue to this day and beyond, to strengthen the Church and the individual Christian in his/her walk with the Lord.
Praise be to God for these three threads of tradition that run through the Church and my life! [/i]
Ad Orientem:
I have extensively read the early church fathers, in particular the ante-Nicene Fathers. Where are my views on ecclesiology not in conformity with those of the early Christians? Please give references.
Also…..my point of agreement with Mattinlgy was his assessment that the Anglican Church is a compromising church. That’s clear to all bible believing Christians. My statement about icons, beautiful architecture, hierarchy beyond the local citywide church and the like was to illustrate that most Anglicans place emphasis on non-essentials.
High church, Anglo- Catholicism places too many stumbling blocks in the way of believers to produce a healthy biblical faithful environment that is conducive to true Christian evangelism and growth. Look at the Global South. I’m willing to bet that the churches that are growing like crazy are low church and evangelical. True evangelism and growth is not biblically orthodox Christians moving to one church or the other as is the case with disgruntle Protestants going to Rome or Orthodoxy. True evangelism and church growth are souls being saved. If people are not placing their faith in Christ, repenting of their sins and being baptized on a regular basis, your church is not truly growing in the New Testament sense of church growth.
-Vincent
Vincent,
You truly make a mistake to think that orthodox Anglo-Catholics have any quibble what so ever with this. You seem to have missed the forest for the trees in our case.
At the heart of our church environment is a heart that emphasizes repentance, trusting in Jesus, believing in Scripture, trusting in God’s grace, not in works, to save us. You will find no orthodox AC parish teaching anything over or above the same Gospel that you believe in.
You look and see something different and so assume that the Gospel is missing. It is not. I cannot be emphatic enough about that.
Thank you to Joe from OC, Phil, StayinAnglican, and you others for describing so aptly the way I feel about Anglicanism. I embrace the weaknesses with which Mattingly condemns this worship tradition. Anglicanism is not a pale shade of Calvinism or Roman Catholicism. For me it lives and dies as a via media. Anglicanism is a proclamation of Mere Christianity, an embracing of all my brothers and sisters of so many tribes, tongues, and liturgies — an inclusion of those who would reject me and each other. It is a big, orthodox tent bursting at the seams. Let me be counted among the compromisers; if your theology fits the faith of the creeds, you are my brother and sister. You may claim to be ‘of Peter,’ or ‘of Luther,’ or of Benedict. I see you still as Christ’s and my brother. This may be weakness. This weakness we cannot afford to lose.
JM
Dear Pilgrims:
I found this article most interesting and very much on the mark. Why did issues of sexuality become the line in the sand, so to speak, for our present difficulty, when the majority of Episcopalians seemed not terribly upset about attacks on fundamental dogmatic issues ?
I have been a priest for almost 45 years. I have yet to met a person who leaves the Church over dogmatic questions. They always seem to be moral issues:) Perhaps they are the ones that challenge us to change our behavior, the thing we are most reluctant to do.
This is not a very sophisticated analysis, but it reflects my experience.
#33
Theological/ doctrinal differences do not always make it out in the open. Our disagreements over sexual morality do. I can think many things about the nature of the bread and wine once blessed and no one will have a clue what I am thinking. Sexual morality is about social organization. It is right in front of us and cannot be avoided. This is why I keep saying we are not dealing with mere opinions here, we are dealing with practice. Not just individual practice, but communal structure.
These changes in our sexual morality do have theological/doctrinal roots though. I think this is the place we need to correct the problem.
No. 33:
Well, is worshipping other gods at an Anglican altar a dogmatic issue? That was a big one for me.
http://tmatt.gospelcom.net/tmatt/freelance/wolves.htm
35
Thanks for joining us Terry.
Dale (#23):
I think I’m in agreement with your sort of socio-historical cause/effect analysis, but I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.
I enjoyed and appreciated this article greatly.
But I have to point out that much of the implication is . . . that Orthodoxy achieves the via media that Anglicanism strives for and fails at. ; > )
This sentence also interested me:
“Even if that is seen as a political backing of that side of the Anglican war, the pope has already decided which side of it he is going to talk to the most.”
I’m not so certain that that is true — although of course I would like to believe it.
Thanks for asking, Joe (#37). Sometimes reading this web site makes me want to throw out questions for thought instead of answers and opinions, so I decided not to make my interpretation explicit.
If you or anyone else are still reading this thread, here is my interpretation.
I appreciated what some of the later posters said about Anglicanism as mere Christianity. Nonetheless, we do have doctrinal roots. As Abp. Orombi recently pointed out, Anglicanism has been for four hundred years the conservator of the heritage of the English Reformation. This reformation occurred because God, not Henry VIII, willed it. It originated in God’s Word. Certainly, the political situation of time shaped it, buts its greatness lay precisely in letting John Chrysostom and John Calvin sit in the same pew. I think one may need to be an Anglican to see how that makes sense. John and Charles Wesley did, and that was how they indirectly led me to my true Anglican home from High Church Methodism.
A high church position which it would not be accurate to call Anglo-Catholicism existed before the Oxford and Ritualist movements altered it. Its fathers were William Laud, Thomas Ken, Lancelot Andrewes, George Herbert, Nicholas Ferrar, and the Wesley brothers, among many.
At the same time, our martyrs Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer did not die in vain. Ours is a Reformed faith and our Articles of Religion articulate that in a way that is a masterpiece of faith and reason joined.
Broad Church people deserve credit, too. I may be one of them, though tending to High and Dry. We need to remember the Reverend Bishop of Cloyne, George Berkeley, in our Church Calendar. I never cease to be amazed and appalled that our greatest philosopher and a man of unexceptionable character and faith does not have a day of commemoration.
To sum up, I apologize to all of the good Christians who call themselves Anglo-Catholics, and suggest with a heavy heart that they are the source of most of the present agony in the Protestant Episcopal Church, directly or indirectly. My background and foreground in Law, Social Science, and History compels me to admit that the same things might have happened if the Protestant element in our church had remained ascendant from the beginning (see United Church of Christ).
The terms Reappraiser and Reasserter are perceptive and useful, but liable to misinterpretation in our age of labels. Why do we have to be branded? I feel like an old wine put in a new bottle and labled 80% Reasserter and 20% Reappraiser, or perhaps that was 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. If anyone drank my faith as pure Pinot, they would have an uncomfortable night afterwards. If they were expecting Cabernet, they would send the bottle back.
Dale:
While I disagree with a number of your conclusions and positions, I appreciate your approach on these issues, as well your obvious admiration for the Wesley brothers, who in many ways are a microcosm of what the Anglican tradition should be.
I will have more later.