The seeming collapse of attempts to start an Anglican Ordinariate in Canada following some unfortunate remarks by Archbishop Hepworth have got me wondering about that old question - whither Anglicanism? It seems to me that yet again, no matter how hard the Anglo-Catholics try to make themselves acceptable to Rome, they are still met with the same response - convert! I hope that those Anglo-Catholics who sincerely believe that the Pope is the Head of the Church on earth do convert, because it will simplify matters back here in Anglicanland.
In the USA it seems that there are three strands to the Continuing Anglican movement that I would loosely characterize as being Moderate Evangelical, Old High Church, and Anglo-Catholic, though I suspect that a lot of folks would not use my labels, but there you go. To a greater or lesser extent all three depend on the Church as whole having a strong ANGLICAN identity with which to interact, and react. However, Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics tend to emphasize only those elements that they like - basically the Articles in the case of the former, and the BCP and the appeal to the Fathers in the case of the latter. Old High Churchmen have the fault that they tend to be rather insular and self-sufficient - but maybe that is not altogether a bad thing.
So, in what does the Anglican identity lie?
First and foremost, the Anglican identity is an expression of the Church Catholic - that congregation formed by Jesus Christ through His Apostles to be His Body. In terms of defining what that body believes we rely on the Bible, the Creeds, the Councils of the Undivided Church. This appeal has been one that has been made by Anglicans right from the beginning. Archbishop Matthew Parker told his clergy to interpret he Articles and Injunctions 'in the most Catholic sense.' Hooker, te Caroline Divines and the High Churchmen of the eighteenth century all wrote with one eye fixed on the Early Fathers. The Oxford Movement also appealed to the Father, as did the more learned of Anglican Evangelicals. Unfortunately, modern Episcopalianism seems to regard the Fathers as some dead dude who wrote about Chrstianity a long time ago, and only reference them when it suits ther revisionist agenda.
To me, the second plank of the Anglican identity is Common Prayer. In the sequence of Reforming measures introduced between 1534 and 1553 the first BCP comes third or fourth. The idea was to put the liturgy into English; to simplify it so everyone could participate; and to cleanse it of those elements at variance with the Scriptures and the Fathers. Unfortunately, during the second phase of the Catholic Revival, some began to argue that the BCP was incomplete when compared to the modern Roman Liturgy which in their minds had become normative. This led to them adding to the BCP on their own authority - something which, from the catholic point of view, was strictly a no-no. These additions were eventually codified in the form of the English, American, and Anglican Missals, to which the Bishops wisely did NOT authorize for the use of the whole Church. At the end of the day the Catholic Liturgy of that branch of the Church Catholic denominated 'Anglican' is the Book of Common Prayer in the edition authorized by the General Synod or Convention of the Province involved.
Thirdly, the Articles of Religion. Now I know a lot of Anglo-Catholics reach for the gin when I mention the Articles, but there are one of the defining documents of the Anglican Reformation. Unfortunately, some of us have been conditioned to reject them without making a serious examnation of their contents. The major roblem comes from the fact that they dea with the controversies of the mid-sixteenth century, and their theological currency is one that we use little today, but they are none the less instructive. The first thing thing that has to be remembered is that they do not explicitly deny any doctrine maintained by the first Seven Councils. Secondly, the Church has always demanded that, like the BCP, they be interpreted in 'the catholic sense.'
Fourthly, the Anglican Continuum preserves the Apostolic Ministry of (male) deacons, priests, and bishops. Like the Roman Church we can trace the mainline our orders back through the centuries to the fourteenth century - which is a couple of hundred years further back than Rome. Furthermore we have no evidence to suggest that there was a break in the succession then, or, as the Romans allege in 1559. We can therefore regard it as reasonably certain that our Orders go back to the days when the Apostles prayered over and then laid hands upon the men they sent out as overseers, elders and servants of the Church, just as they in turn had received the Holy Spirit and been sent out by Christ Himself. However, I would at this point like to remind you that you can have the most impeccible Orders in the world, yet it is worthless unless you also believe, live and preach that Catholic and Apostolic faith that was committed to your keeping at your ordination.
What I am suggesting here is that Anglicans have an inherently Catholic identity that is not to be found in its imitation of that eccentric Communion headquarted in the Vatican, but in its own Liturgy and Articles. The future for Anglicans lies not in becoming something, but in being what we already are - the English reform of the Catholic Church. This concept of Reformed Catholicism is one that was dear to the Reformer, the Caroline Divines, the Georgian High Churchmen, the Tractarians, and to good churchmen and women in every period of the Church's history. Reformed Catholicism is also the key to our future as one strand of the Church Catholic. We need to give up being embarrassed by our Anglican-ness and proclaim that which we have received.
If I have a vision for the coming Continuing Anglican Church it is that we stop looking over our shoulders and start looking only on Jesus Christ. Less poetically, we need to stop worrying about the fact we are different to Rome or Orthodoxy and just get on with being the Catholic Church of the English (-speaking) People. Of course our apeal is wider than that, and we must always be ready to embrace those who share the Reformed Catholic ideal whatever their language, but we need to be aways mindful of the fact that our roots lie in the Church of St Patrick and St Augustine; the Venerable Bede and Alcuin; of Cranmer and Laud; Simeon and Keble, and the untold millions who have found the most perfect expression of Catholicism to lie within her walls.
After four hundred years in which we have been in some sense "the Establishment" either by law or by culture, or in both, we are now in an era where we have to make our way by our profession of the Faith once delivered to the Apostles. We need to become a Missionary Church and an Evangelizing Church that exalts Jesus Christ - 'the way, the truth and the life' - in all that we do and teach. Cleaving more closely to Christ is the only way in which we can hope to overcome the challenges posed to the Truth by both secularism and Islam.
Showing posts with label Anglicanism - identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anglicanism - identity. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Why the Big Fuss about 1549?
This week past saw the 461st anniversary of the First BCP, that of 1549. It was used for a mere three years and five months before being replaced by that of 1552, which in all essential respects, is the one still used by the Church of England today. At least, in the odd places that have nt substituted "Comic Washup" - oops, I mean, Common Worship!
Whilst the anniversary is an important one, I do not quite understand the modern Anglo-Catholic enthusiasm for it. For a start, if they think that Cranmer's 1549 BCP allows more mediaeval teachings about the Eucharist than its successor then they are mistaken, it is just as clear in its repudiation of mediaeval Eucharistic theology as its successor. On the other land, the 1549's structure is more traditional; more obviously derived from the Sarum Missal, which preceded it. Its real strength, from the Anglo-Papalist point of view, is that the 1549 BCP can be more successfully "spun" than its successors, as Cranmer himself soon realised.
This brings me to what is now a half forgotten controversy - that between Stephen Gardiner, the Henrician Catholic Bishop of Winchester, and Cranmer himself about Eucharistic doctrine. This developed into a pamphleteering slug-fest that occupied the leaders of both the conservative and reforming factions of the Church of England throughout 1550 and 1551. Gardiner saw the 1549 as being capable of traditional interpretation, accepting the BCP whilst pushing the mediaeval Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass. Cranmer, nettled firstly by what he saw as Gardiner's erroneous doctrine, and secondly, by his "bending" of Cranmer's own BCP to support his teaching, delivered a weighty defense of the Reformed Eucharistic doctrine.
The early English Reformed doctrine of the "true Presence" was based on the writings of Ratramnus - a ninth century monk of Corbie - via Nicholas Ridley, and emphasized the presence of Christ in the Supper, at the expense of his presence in the elements. Also, pushed onwards by the (mainly) constructive criticism of his Reformed colleagues, Cranmer also began to prepare a revision of the Book of Common Prayer. This appeared at All Saintstide 1552 and gave more explicit litugical form to Cranmer's Eucharistic theology.
McCullough in his biography of Cranmer, argues convincingly that the 1549 was meant to be transitional. However, I still suspect that its replacement's preparation was accelerated partly because of the controversy with Gardiner, and possibly because of Edward VI's declining health. One thing that is very prominent in the second book of 1552 is revised structure of the Communion service. Gone is the quasi-traditional structure of the 1549, and in its place comes a service which is clearly focussed on the act of Communion - to the point of actual interupting the Eucharistic Canon so that priest and people can receive. Whilst this layout is highly unorthodoxy liturgically, it is extremely effective at a service at which most of the congregation receives Communion. Hearing the prayer of Oblation after Communion having received the gifts, and with the elements on the altar table, makes one acutely aware of being both a partaker of the offering and also of being offered as part of the "reasonable, holy and living sacrifice." Cranmer's doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice, rather than being absent as some reason, took the form of the Eucharist being a memorial of the one perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice, and also an offering up as ourselves and our lives, sanctified by Christ's sacramental Body and Blood, as a sacrifice to God. This offering of "ourselves, our souls and bodies" is the response of faith-filled hearts to the love of Christ.
The two subsequent English BCPs - 1559 and 1662 - retained the 1552 as their basis, but introduced more traditional wording and ceremonial. The 1559 prefixed the 1552 words of administration with the traditional "The Body (Blood) of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," and allowed the use of the traditional Eucharistic vestments and wafer bread. The 1662 revision reintroduced the offertory with both the alms and the bread and wine being presented at the altar. In Ireland, where the 1926 revision of the BCP chose to retain the 1552/1662 form of the Communion service, a further restoration takes place in the form of a rubric allowing both the prayers of Oblation and Thanksgiving to be said after Communion. This approach was also adopted by Archbishops Fisher and Garbett in their "Shorter Prayer Book" of 1948. These revisions served to balance the Memorial, Communion, and Sacrifical elements of the BCP Commnion rite.
Apart from a few Anglo-Catholic parishes and the odd historical reenactment, 1549 remained pretty much a dead letter. However, 1549 did influence the Scottish BCP of 1637, the "Durham Book" revision of 1661, and the eighteenth century Non-Juror revisions where it plays second fiddle to Eastern Orthodox influences. However, inspite of having received a decent burial in the archives, it was exhumed in 1949 just in time for the liturgical revisions of the 1960s, and the controversies of the 1970s.
As a result, it found its way into the Affirmation of St Louis, perhaps as part of the "Anglo-Catholic Ecumenicism" that also led to the seven councils and seven sacraments provisions in that document. Perhaps it was felt that it might be more acceptable in some future reproachement with Orthodoxy than 1662 or 1928, but in truth, Western Rie Orthodoxy has tended to work from the American BCP or the Non-Juror Liturgy of 1712.
I cannot help thinking that the "canonizing" of the 1549 BCP alongside the American 1928, which embodies both the Scottish and Anglo-Irish traditions whilst favouring the former, and the Canadian 1962, which also compromises between the Scottish and Anglo-Irish traditions whilst favouring with the latter, was yet another piece of invisible mending intended to force the Continuing Movement into a "Catholic restorationalist" path than maintaining Classical Anglican/Caroline High Church line of development. It would certainly have been more in line with the historical mainstream of Anglicanism to have "canonized" the 1662 BCP, or, if the Black Rubric really is that much of a problem and not just a shibboleth, the 1559 version of the same. Certainly, the adoption of the 1549 BCP had the effect of shutting the door of the Continuing Church Movement to mainstream Anglican Evangelicals, as well as proving to be an unwelcome additional burden to those of us who hold to the Caroline tradition.
Let me be clear, I am not proposing that we repudiate the Affirmation of St Louis, I am suggesting that we see it for what it truly is, a flawed document. The Affirmation both successfully defines the central points of Continuing Anglican Movement by repudiating the modernist errors that destroyed ECUSA, but also attempts to redefine the Anglican tradition by embracing mediaeval Catholic elements rejected at the Reformation and by the Caroline Divines. In choosing to retain subscription to the 1928 Book Of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion, the United Episcopal Church of North America returned to something close to the tradition Church of England (and for that matter, Ireland) manner of defining itself. I also believe it may also have been a tacit protest against the revisionist elements within the Affirmation of St Louis.
Whilst the anniversary is an important one, I do not quite understand the modern Anglo-Catholic enthusiasm for it. For a start, if they think that Cranmer's 1549 BCP allows more mediaeval teachings about the Eucharist than its successor then they are mistaken, it is just as clear in its repudiation of mediaeval Eucharistic theology as its successor. On the other land, the 1549's structure is more traditional; more obviously derived from the Sarum Missal, which preceded it. Its real strength, from the Anglo-Papalist point of view, is that the 1549 BCP can be more successfully "spun" than its successors, as Cranmer himself soon realised.
This brings me to what is now a half forgotten controversy - that between Stephen Gardiner, the Henrician Catholic Bishop of Winchester, and Cranmer himself about Eucharistic doctrine. This developed into a pamphleteering slug-fest that occupied the leaders of both the conservative and reforming factions of the Church of England throughout 1550 and 1551. Gardiner saw the 1549 as being capable of traditional interpretation, accepting the BCP whilst pushing the mediaeval Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass. Cranmer, nettled firstly by what he saw as Gardiner's erroneous doctrine, and secondly, by his "bending" of Cranmer's own BCP to support his teaching, delivered a weighty defense of the Reformed Eucharistic doctrine.
The early English Reformed doctrine of the "true Presence" was based on the writings of Ratramnus - a ninth century monk of Corbie - via Nicholas Ridley, and emphasized the presence of Christ in the Supper, at the expense of his presence in the elements. Also, pushed onwards by the (mainly) constructive criticism of his Reformed colleagues, Cranmer also began to prepare a revision of the Book of Common Prayer. This appeared at All Saintstide 1552 and gave more explicit litugical form to Cranmer's Eucharistic theology.
McCullough in his biography of Cranmer, argues convincingly that the 1549 was meant to be transitional. However, I still suspect that its replacement's preparation was accelerated partly because of the controversy with Gardiner, and possibly because of Edward VI's declining health. One thing that is very prominent in the second book of 1552 is revised structure of the Communion service. Gone is the quasi-traditional structure of the 1549, and in its place comes a service which is clearly focussed on the act of Communion - to the point of actual interupting the Eucharistic Canon so that priest and people can receive. Whilst this layout is highly unorthodoxy liturgically, it is extremely effective at a service at which most of the congregation receives Communion. Hearing the prayer of Oblation after Communion having received the gifts, and with the elements on the altar table, makes one acutely aware of being both a partaker of the offering and also of being offered as part of the "reasonable, holy and living sacrifice." Cranmer's doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice, rather than being absent as some reason, took the form of the Eucharist being a memorial of the one perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice, and also an offering up as ourselves and our lives, sanctified by Christ's sacramental Body and Blood, as a sacrifice to God. This offering of "ourselves, our souls and bodies" is the response of faith-filled hearts to the love of Christ.
The two subsequent English BCPs - 1559 and 1662 - retained the 1552 as their basis, but introduced more traditional wording and ceremonial. The 1559 prefixed the 1552 words of administration with the traditional "The Body (Blood) of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," and allowed the use of the traditional Eucharistic vestments and wafer bread. The 1662 revision reintroduced the offertory with both the alms and the bread and wine being presented at the altar. In Ireland, where the 1926 revision of the BCP chose to retain the 1552/1662 form of the Communion service, a further restoration takes place in the form of a rubric allowing both the prayers of Oblation and Thanksgiving to be said after Communion. This approach was also adopted by Archbishops Fisher and Garbett in their "Shorter Prayer Book" of 1948. These revisions served to balance the Memorial, Communion, and Sacrifical elements of the BCP Commnion rite.
Apart from a few Anglo-Catholic parishes and the odd historical reenactment, 1549 remained pretty much a dead letter. However, 1549 did influence the Scottish BCP of 1637, the "Durham Book" revision of 1661, and the eighteenth century Non-Juror revisions where it plays second fiddle to Eastern Orthodox influences. However, inspite of having received a decent burial in the archives, it was exhumed in 1949 just in time for the liturgical revisions of the 1960s, and the controversies of the 1970s.
As a result, it found its way into the Affirmation of St Louis, perhaps as part of the "Anglo-Catholic Ecumenicism" that also led to the seven councils and seven sacraments provisions in that document. Perhaps it was felt that it might be more acceptable in some future reproachement with Orthodoxy than 1662 or 1928, but in truth, Western Rie Orthodoxy has tended to work from the American BCP or the Non-Juror Liturgy of 1712.
I cannot help thinking that the "canonizing" of the 1549 BCP alongside the American 1928, which embodies both the Scottish and Anglo-Irish traditions whilst favouring the former, and the Canadian 1962, which also compromises between the Scottish and Anglo-Irish traditions whilst favouring with the latter, was yet another piece of invisible mending intended to force the Continuing Movement into a "Catholic restorationalist" path than maintaining Classical Anglican/Caroline High Church line of development. It would certainly have been more in line with the historical mainstream of Anglicanism to have "canonized" the 1662 BCP, or, if the Black Rubric really is that much of a problem and not just a shibboleth, the 1559 version of the same. Certainly, the adoption of the 1549 BCP had the effect of shutting the door of the Continuing Church Movement to mainstream Anglican Evangelicals, as well as proving to be an unwelcome additional burden to those of us who hold to the Caroline tradition.
Let me be clear, I am not proposing that we repudiate the Affirmation of St Louis, I am suggesting that we see it for what it truly is, a flawed document. The Affirmation both successfully defines the central points of Continuing Anglican Movement by repudiating the modernist errors that destroyed ECUSA, but also attempts to redefine the Anglican tradition by embracing mediaeval Catholic elements rejected at the Reformation and by the Caroline Divines. In choosing to retain subscription to the 1928 Book Of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion, the United Episcopal Church of North America returned to something close to the tradition Church of England (and for that matter, Ireland) manner of defining itself. I also believe it may also have been a tacit protest against the revisionist elements within the Affirmation of St Louis.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Prayer Book Catholicism
"Prayer Book Catholic" is not a term one hears very often these days. I have a suspicion that that may have something to do firstly with the disappearence of the Prayer Book in England, and partly because the liturgical revision has led to a drawing together of the mainstream A-C and Prayer Book strands in the Church of England. However, the term still has some relevance when talking about Anglo-Catholicism in the Continuum, even though "Prayer Book Catholic" has been a term little used in the USA.
One great characteristic of the American Continuum is that it is overwhelmingly a "small-c catholic" endeavour. Even the "Low Churchmen" can tick all the basic Anglo-catholic boxes - belief in the authority of Scripture, in the three Creeds, in the importance of the Early Fathers and Councils, in the apostolic origin of Holy Orders, in the Real Presence, etc.. The areas of dispute tend to lie in areas that are not core doctrine, such as what should we believe about the Blessed Virgin Mary and how important are Counter-Reformation devotions such as Benediction, the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Thus, within the Continuing environment "Prayer Book Catholicism" represents a sort of middle ground, firmly rooted in the Prayer Book tradition of worship on the one hand, and firmly catholic in doctrine on the other.
Prayer Book Catholicism seems to have had its origin in the Bisley School of Tractarianism, and among those Ritualists who thought that being Anglican was at least as important as being Catholic. Doctrinally, it tended to have a more of an interest in the Early Fathers than it did in modern Roman Catholic theology and placed a strong emphasis on Scripture as the test of what should be dogma. This basic theologial emphasis will give you an idea of where and how moderate Anglo-Catholic theologians differed from Rome. The obvious areas of dispute are those dogmas, doctrines and disciplines of the Roman Church that deviate from the practice of the first eight Christian Centuries. This resulted in a strongly Biblical expression of Catholicism that, in practical terms, valued the integration the sacramental Christianity into the personal commitment to Christ and a striving after holiness characteristic of the old Evangelicalism.
In ceremonial terms Prayer Book Catholicism developed along two paths. The slightly older appraoch is the "English Use" which is a deliberate attempt to revive the such late mediaeval ceremonies as are necessary to the Prayer Book liturgy. This approach was first explored in the mid-nineteenth century, then again c. 1900. It was always most popular in the UK, but, apart from a brief vogue in the 1920s and again in liberal Catholic circles c. 1950, the English Use never really caught on in the USA.
The characteristic Anglo-Catholic approach to ceremonial in the USA, where there is no Ornaments Rubric to point us to the "second year of King Edward the Sixth" has been what I call either "Fortescue and Water" or "Ritual Notes and Water." This approach, adopting and adapting the Tridentine Roman ceremonial in celebrating the Prayer Book services, dates from around 1875 and became popular due to the availability of mass produced items for this style of liturgy. Strangely this led to one of the more visible characteristics of American "Prayer Book Catholicism" - when Roman Usage and the BCP came into conflict, the BCP usually won. That said, there are some widespread additions to the BCP Communion service of which Prayer Catholics are guilty. The most popular of these have been the use of some of the personal prayers of the celebrant, and the addition of the Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei to the Communion office, and less frequently, the use of the Ecce, Agnus Dei before Communion. Also some of the commoner visual elements peculiar to the older Roman Rite - "the big six" on the altar, tabernacles, genuflection, the major elevations, cassocks and cottas for servers have been widely adopted.
Some folks have been tempted to label this Romanizing, but I think it represents the evolution of an American version of Catholic Anglicanism. It is also so firmly entrenched that to launch a new series of liturgy wars aimed at making everyone English Use would be a sinful waste of time and energy when there are souls perishing for want of the catholic Gospel of Christ. There is also a level on which it seems a little odd to tie a country and culture that evolved Post-Reformation to a mediaeval aesthetic. On the other, we should not allow our adoption and adaption the Baroque liturgical aesthetic become a simple ape-ing of 1750s, 1850s or 1950s Rome.
At the end of the day, what Prayer Book Catholic need to be careful to do is be "Bible" or "Evangelical" Catholics. This approach requires our expression of Catholic theology to be rooted in the Scriptures (as expounded in the Early Fathers) and for our worship to be sacramental, dignified, beautiful. Concern for the outward in worship is an extension of the incarnational principle in Christian theology. God-made-man teaches us that the created world special to God and also reminds us that man is made in God's image. It also says something very important about the sacredness of the physical world which was, after all, created by God. This leads us to conclude that the use of human talent, beautiful art, vestments and music, and the engagement of the senses in worship all reflect the incarnational approach to Faith and are an offering acceptable to God. The incipient puritanism of much of American Protestant worship reflects as sort of muted dualism where the physical is "bad" whilst the spiritual is the only true good. This can lead to other disconnects - not just between faith and art, but between religion and morality, faith and conduct, etc.. The common repudiation of art, good music, ceremonial and ritual in worship reflect a religion that over emphasizes the Atonement at the expense of the Incarnation, or more dangerously, especially in the liberal circles, places too much emphasis on Jesus the Great Exemplar and Social Reformer, and not enough of Jesus God Incarnate, our Redeemer, the Christ.
As Christianity becomes marginalized by the Secular Progressive movement (and if you do not believe that is happening look at Western Europe) it becomes increasingly important to take a holistic approach to religion. Christianity should affect every part of the believer's life, not just Sunday mornings and Holydays of Obligation. Christianity should be taught not just as a religion, but as a way of life, a culture, an integrated system. Detaching Christianity from life - which is the logical consequence of teaching it as "just a religion" - actually plays into the hands of the secular progressives as it makes it far easier for them to portray Christianity as irrelevant to daily life - pie in the sky when you die.
When I talk about holistic religion, that naturally brings to mind another word that derives from the same Greek root - catholic. The essence of the catholic faith is both redemptive and incarnation. It values the physical as well as the spiritual as God-made. It is a culture as well as a religion. Thus in our teaching of the faith we need to teach ot just Christian theology, but Christian morality, Christian Liturgy, Christian Art, Christian Culture. If the Twenty-first Century is going to be the twenty-first Christian Century the Church is going to have to teach the fullness of Christianity in order to resist the in-roads of the Truth's two great enemies Secularism, and Islam. They are not shy about (mis)representing their errors as integrated world view; and we should be forceful in our declaration of Christian as the way, the truth, and the life.
One great characteristic of the American Continuum is that it is overwhelmingly a "small-c catholic" endeavour. Even the "Low Churchmen" can tick all the basic Anglo-catholic boxes - belief in the authority of Scripture, in the three Creeds, in the importance of the Early Fathers and Councils, in the apostolic origin of Holy Orders, in the Real Presence, etc.. The areas of dispute tend to lie in areas that are not core doctrine, such as what should we believe about the Blessed Virgin Mary and how important are Counter-Reformation devotions such as Benediction, the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Thus, within the Continuing environment "Prayer Book Catholicism" represents a sort of middle ground, firmly rooted in the Prayer Book tradition of worship on the one hand, and firmly catholic in doctrine on the other.
Prayer Book Catholicism seems to have had its origin in the Bisley School of Tractarianism, and among those Ritualists who thought that being Anglican was at least as important as being Catholic. Doctrinally, it tended to have a more of an interest in the Early Fathers than it did in modern Roman Catholic theology and placed a strong emphasis on Scripture as the test of what should be dogma. This basic theologial emphasis will give you an idea of where and how moderate Anglo-Catholic theologians differed from Rome. The obvious areas of dispute are those dogmas, doctrines and disciplines of the Roman Church that deviate from the practice of the first eight Christian Centuries. This resulted in a strongly Biblical expression of Catholicism that, in practical terms, valued the integration the sacramental Christianity into the personal commitment to Christ and a striving after holiness characteristic of the old Evangelicalism.
In ceremonial terms Prayer Book Catholicism developed along two paths. The slightly older appraoch is the "English Use" which is a deliberate attempt to revive the such late mediaeval ceremonies as are necessary to the Prayer Book liturgy. This approach was first explored in the mid-nineteenth century, then again c. 1900. It was always most popular in the UK, but, apart from a brief vogue in the 1920s and again in liberal Catholic circles c. 1950, the English Use never really caught on in the USA.
The characteristic Anglo-Catholic approach to ceremonial in the USA, where there is no Ornaments Rubric to point us to the "second year of King Edward the Sixth" has been what I call either "Fortescue and Water" or "Ritual Notes and Water." This approach, adopting and adapting the Tridentine Roman ceremonial in celebrating the Prayer Book services, dates from around 1875 and became popular due to the availability of mass produced items for this style of liturgy. Strangely this led to one of the more visible characteristics of American "Prayer Book Catholicism" - when Roman Usage and the BCP came into conflict, the BCP usually won. That said, there are some widespread additions to the BCP Communion service of which Prayer Catholics are guilty. The most popular of these have been the use of some of the personal prayers of the celebrant, and the addition of the Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei to the Communion office, and less frequently, the use of the Ecce, Agnus Dei before Communion. Also some of the commoner visual elements peculiar to the older Roman Rite - "the big six" on the altar, tabernacles, genuflection, the major elevations, cassocks and cottas for servers have been widely adopted.
Some folks have been tempted to label this Romanizing, but I think it represents the evolution of an American version of Catholic Anglicanism. It is also so firmly entrenched that to launch a new series of liturgy wars aimed at making everyone English Use would be a sinful waste of time and energy when there are souls perishing for want of the catholic Gospel of Christ. There is also a level on which it seems a little odd to tie a country and culture that evolved Post-Reformation to a mediaeval aesthetic. On the other, we should not allow our adoption and adaption the Baroque liturgical aesthetic become a simple ape-ing of 1750s, 1850s or 1950s Rome.
At the end of the day, what Prayer Book Catholic need to be careful to do is be "Bible" or "Evangelical" Catholics. This approach requires our expression of Catholic theology to be rooted in the Scriptures (as expounded in the Early Fathers) and for our worship to be sacramental, dignified, beautiful. Concern for the outward in worship is an extension of the incarnational principle in Christian theology. God-made-man teaches us that the created world special to God and also reminds us that man is made in God's image. It also says something very important about the sacredness of the physical world which was, after all, created by God. This leads us to conclude that the use of human talent, beautiful art, vestments and music, and the engagement of the senses in worship all reflect the incarnational approach to Faith and are an offering acceptable to God. The incipient puritanism of much of American Protestant worship reflects as sort of muted dualism where the physical is "bad" whilst the spiritual is the only true good. This can lead to other disconnects - not just between faith and art, but between religion and morality, faith and conduct, etc.. The common repudiation of art, good music, ceremonial and ritual in worship reflect a religion that over emphasizes the Atonement at the expense of the Incarnation, or more dangerously, especially in the liberal circles, places too much emphasis on Jesus the Great Exemplar and Social Reformer, and not enough of Jesus God Incarnate, our Redeemer, the Christ.
As Christianity becomes marginalized by the Secular Progressive movement (and if you do not believe that is happening look at Western Europe) it becomes increasingly important to take a holistic approach to religion. Christianity should affect every part of the believer's life, not just Sunday mornings and Holydays of Obligation. Christianity should be taught not just as a religion, but as a way of life, a culture, an integrated system. Detaching Christianity from life - which is the logical consequence of teaching it as "just a religion" - actually plays into the hands of the secular progressives as it makes it far easier for them to portray Christianity as irrelevant to daily life - pie in the sky when you die.
When I talk about holistic religion, that naturally brings to mind another word that derives from the same Greek root - catholic. The essence of the catholic faith is both redemptive and incarnation. It values the physical as well as the spiritual as God-made. It is a culture as well as a religion. Thus in our teaching of the faith we need to teach ot just Christian theology, but Christian morality, Christian Liturgy, Christian Art, Christian Culture. If the Twenty-first Century is going to be the twenty-first Christian Century the Church is going to have to teach the fullness of Christianity in order to resist the in-roads of the Truth's two great enemies Secularism, and Islam. They are not shy about (mis)representing their errors as integrated world view; and we should be forceful in our declaration of Christian as the way, the truth, and the life.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
A Conservative Reformation - Part I
There has been a pretty concerted attempt over the last 175 years by one party within the Anglican Church to deny the Protestant heritage of orthodox Episcopalianism. This has generally taken the form of either a deliberate misreading of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, (for example J. H. Newman's "Tract XC") or, more recently, an outright denial that they have any relevance to the modern Church. Whilst I would strongly disagree with the arguments contained in Tract XC, it is true to say, that you have to put the Articles into their historical context in order to fully appreciate what Archbishop Matthew Parker and the Convocations of Canterbury and York were trying to do back in 1563.
Theologically, the Protestant Reformers brake down into three groups. For the sake of argument let us call them conservative Biblicists, moderate Biblicists, and radical Biblicists. The Conservative Biblists were headed by Luther, and include other big names such as Melancthon, Bugenhagen, Olaus Petri, and most of the earlier English reformers - Barnes, Tyndale, etc.. The Reformers consist of the moderate Swiss and Rhineland reformers such as Calvin, Bucer, Oecelampadius, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger. The radical camp consists of people like Carlstadt and Michael Servetus who ultimately started rethinking the Creeds. The radical camp eventually painted themselves into a corner and survive only in radical Biblicist groups like the Amish, and the Mennonites. They have a distant mainstream cousin in the form of the various Baptist Churches, but on the whole their tradition has ended up being pretty marginal. On the other hand, the conservative and moderate Biblicists were to form the mainstream of the European Reformation.
The reason for this is that the various State Churches fell broadly into two groups. The Conservative Biblicists conducted their own form of the Reformation in North Germany and Scandanavia giving those countries a Evangelical Lutheran heritage. The Swiss soon abandoned some of the more extreme positions of Zwingli and conducted a moderate "Bible exclusively" Reformation in the Swiss Cantons, spreading it to Strassbourg, various Rhineland States, the Northern Netherlands, and Scotland. The English Church went its own way somewhere in between the two camps, giving some truth to MacCauley's old jibe about the Church of England. To modify MacCuley in the interests of accuracy it would be fair to say that Anglicanism ended up with "a Catholic hierarchy; Bucerian Articles; and a Lutheran Liturgy." Why was this?
In the 1530s and early 1540s it looked as though England was eventually going to embrace a conservative form of Lutheranism, akin to that of Sweden. Archbishop Cranmer was a Lutheran, and so were most of the Reform minded folks with influence. However, about 1545, Reformed ideas, mainly coming from Strassbourg and the Rhineland rather than directly from Geneva and Zurich, began to gain ground. Nicholas Ridley (1500-55), the "bright young thing" of the reforming movement seems to have embraced the Reformed Eucharistic theology after reading a ninth century tract by a monk called Ratramnus. He eventually convinced Latimer and Cranmer that the Lutheran position on the Eucharist was incorrect, and the stage was set for the Edwardian Reformation to proceed along moderate Reformed, rather than Lutheran lines.
Inspite of its conservativism, and favour with modern Anglo-Catholics, the 1549 BCP was carefully framed within a Reformed theological framework. However, Cranmer, who was a believer in gradualism, framed the service in such a way that Henrician Catholics would not be overly shocked by it, and that the Lutheran mainstream of the Reforming party could accept it whole-heartedly. By all accounts he did the job a bit too well, resulting in a lengthy debate with the Henrician Catholic bishop Stephen Gardner (1500-55), who believed that the 1549 Eucharist was capable of Catholic interpretation, and on the other front it was heavily criticized by Martin Bucer, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, who produced his "Censura" of the First BCP in 1550. Cranmer, who increasingly identified with the Reformed camp, went back to the drawing board, heavily modified the Communion service, and stripped away much of the ceremonial left in 1549.
The 1552 BCP marked the high water mark of Reformed thinking when it came to the liturgy of the Church of England. Edward VI died within a year, and the Accession of Mary Tudor (1516-58) made it dangerous to be a Protestant as she formally returned the country to the Roman obedience. However, Mary's ill-advised policy of burning prominent Protestants like Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, Taylor, and various other important members of Edward's hierarchy did not play well with the general population. If she had lived longer Queen Mary would probably have been successful in returning England to the Catholic fold, or more likely, have pitched the country into Religious War, but as it was she died in November 1558 leaving a country stuck between the Old and New Religions.
Her successor, her half-sister Elizabeth (1533-1603) had been educated by John Cheke, and had had Matthew Parker as her chaplain at one stage. She therefore lent towards Protestantism, but was relatively uninfluenced by Continental trends being a partisan of neither Lutheranism or Calvinism. Matthew Parker (c.1504-1575), her choice for Archbishop of Canterbury, was also a proponant of the insular version of Protestantism and relatively uninfluenced by foreign disputes, whilst being full aware of all the issues. Sir William Cecil, her chief advisor, was also no fan of foreign fads, though perhaps a little more inclined to Calvinism than the Queen. With these three in charge of policy the stage was set for a moderate, "pan-Protestant" religious settlement, reflecting the government's need to bring all three streams of English Protestantism within the national Church. Elizabeth, Cecil, and Parker therefore set out to comprehend Lutherans, Bucerians, and Calvinists within one National Church. Paradoxically, what started off as a matter of political expediency ended up producing what John Wesley described as the "best reformed Church in Christendom."
In the next article we are going to look at how this was brought about and why it is so important for Continuing Anglicans to preserve their Reformed Catholic heritage.
Theologically, the Protestant Reformers brake down into three groups. For the sake of argument let us call them conservative Biblicists, moderate Biblicists, and radical Biblicists. The Conservative Biblists were headed by Luther, and include other big names such as Melancthon, Bugenhagen, Olaus Petri, and most of the earlier English reformers - Barnes, Tyndale, etc.. The Reformers consist of the moderate Swiss and Rhineland reformers such as Calvin, Bucer, Oecelampadius, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger. The radical camp consists of people like Carlstadt and Michael Servetus who ultimately started rethinking the Creeds. The radical camp eventually painted themselves into a corner and survive only in radical Biblicist groups like the Amish, and the Mennonites. They have a distant mainstream cousin in the form of the various Baptist Churches, but on the whole their tradition has ended up being pretty marginal. On the other hand, the conservative and moderate Biblicists were to form the mainstream of the European Reformation.
The reason for this is that the various State Churches fell broadly into two groups. The Conservative Biblicists conducted their own form of the Reformation in North Germany and Scandanavia giving those countries a Evangelical Lutheran heritage. The Swiss soon abandoned some of the more extreme positions of Zwingli and conducted a moderate "Bible exclusively" Reformation in the Swiss Cantons, spreading it to Strassbourg, various Rhineland States, the Northern Netherlands, and Scotland. The English Church went its own way somewhere in between the two camps, giving some truth to MacCauley's old jibe about the Church of England. To modify MacCuley in the interests of accuracy it would be fair to say that Anglicanism ended up with "a Catholic hierarchy; Bucerian Articles; and a Lutheran Liturgy." Why was this?
In the 1530s and early 1540s it looked as though England was eventually going to embrace a conservative form of Lutheranism, akin to that of Sweden. Archbishop Cranmer was a Lutheran, and so were most of the Reform minded folks with influence. However, about 1545, Reformed ideas, mainly coming from Strassbourg and the Rhineland rather than directly from Geneva and Zurich, began to gain ground. Nicholas Ridley (1500-55), the "bright young thing" of the reforming movement seems to have embraced the Reformed Eucharistic theology after reading a ninth century tract by a monk called Ratramnus. He eventually convinced Latimer and Cranmer that the Lutheran position on the Eucharist was incorrect, and the stage was set for the Edwardian Reformation to proceed along moderate Reformed, rather than Lutheran lines.
Inspite of its conservativism, and favour with modern Anglo-Catholics, the 1549 BCP was carefully framed within a Reformed theological framework. However, Cranmer, who was a believer in gradualism, framed the service in such a way that Henrician Catholics would not be overly shocked by it, and that the Lutheran mainstream of the Reforming party could accept it whole-heartedly. By all accounts he did the job a bit too well, resulting in a lengthy debate with the Henrician Catholic bishop Stephen Gardner (1500-55), who believed that the 1549 Eucharist was capable of Catholic interpretation, and on the other front it was heavily criticized by Martin Bucer, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, who produced his "Censura" of the First BCP in 1550. Cranmer, who increasingly identified with the Reformed camp, went back to the drawing board, heavily modified the Communion service, and stripped away much of the ceremonial left in 1549.
The 1552 BCP marked the high water mark of Reformed thinking when it came to the liturgy of the Church of England. Edward VI died within a year, and the Accession of Mary Tudor (1516-58) made it dangerous to be a Protestant as she formally returned the country to the Roman obedience. However, Mary's ill-advised policy of burning prominent Protestants like Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper, Taylor, and various other important members of Edward's hierarchy did not play well with the general population. If she had lived longer Queen Mary would probably have been successful in returning England to the Catholic fold, or more likely, have pitched the country into Religious War, but as it was she died in November 1558 leaving a country stuck between the Old and New Religions.
Her successor, her half-sister Elizabeth (1533-1603) had been educated by John Cheke, and had had Matthew Parker as her chaplain at one stage. She therefore lent towards Protestantism, but was relatively uninfluenced by Continental trends being a partisan of neither Lutheranism or Calvinism. Matthew Parker (c.1504-1575), her choice for Archbishop of Canterbury, was also a proponant of the insular version of Protestantism and relatively uninfluenced by foreign disputes, whilst being full aware of all the issues. Sir William Cecil, her chief advisor, was also no fan of foreign fads, though perhaps a little more inclined to Calvinism than the Queen. With these three in charge of policy the stage was set for a moderate, "pan-Protestant" religious settlement, reflecting the government's need to bring all three streams of English Protestantism within the national Church. Elizabeth, Cecil, and Parker therefore set out to comprehend Lutherans, Bucerians, and Calvinists within one National Church. Paradoxically, what started off as a matter of political expediency ended up producing what John Wesley described as the "best reformed Church in Christendom."
In the next article we are going to look at how this was brought about and why it is so important for Continuing Anglicans to preserve their Reformed Catholic heritage.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
"At the Reformation...
the Church of England became Protestant in order to become more catholic"
William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham 1826-36
Van Mildert was a traditional High Churchman, steeped in the theology of the Early Fathers and the Caroline Divines. At first glance his statement looks paradoxical, but what he is getting at is the method of reform. That at the Reformation the Church of England used protestant ideas from the continent to slough off the accumulated abuses of the Middle Ages. Then, interpreting her new formularies in, as Archbishop Parker phrased it, "the most catholic sense" established a national Church which was reformed Catholic in character.
The Anglican Reformation was, in some ways, rather messy, and it owed rather a lot to some of the key players - Elizabeth I, Matthew Parker, and Lord Cecil. They crafted a broadly based Protestant Settlement of Religion that was governed by a conservative revision of the Book of Common Prayer, and from 1563 by the 39 Articles Although the Book of Common Prayer held up very well under pressure, apart from its provisions about vestments being ignored, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (hereafter XXXIX) were soon found to be capable of wide interpretation. The philosophy driving the Elizabethan Settlement was that of making a national Protestant and Episcopal Church. Doctrinally they had tried to comprehend both the Reformed (Calvinist) and Lutheran positions. The result was that the XXXIX largely reflected Lutheran theology except on the topic of Holy Communion where they veered towards the "spiritual presence' views of Cranmer's friend Martin Bucer (1491-1551).
For the first fifty years after 1559, most senior churchmen were High Church Calvinists, and interpreted the XXXIX in that way. They were basically Reformed in theology, but accepted the discipline and liturgy of the Church of England. However, after about 1585 there was a dissenting minority, who, once they became a discernable party, were called Arminians, and later High Churchmen, whose theology was more Patristic in inspiration. They gradually abandoned the Predestinarian theology of the Reformed party, and began preaching the doctrines of Free Wil, Baptismal Regeneration, the Centrality of Holy Communion, and the Divine origin of Episcopacy, all of which they found in the Fathers of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries. In the later years of James I and in the reign of Charles I they gradually came to be the dominant party in the Church of England, and after the brief Puritan victory of Cromwell's Commonwealth (1644-1660) they were triumphant in the Restoration Church.
The Patristic influenced "Reformed Catholic" theology that they developed and propagated was a dominant school of Anglican thought from the 1660s to the 1840s. From the Caroline Divines, the torch passed to the Non-Jurors, to High Church Whigs like John Potter and Edmund Gibbon, then to the "Orthodox Party" under George III and the Regency, and to E. Harold Browne, and the Wordsworth brothers who were the last major exponants of the tradition. This tradition was absorbed and radicalized by the Tractarians and the Prayer Book Catholics. The older moderate tradition also continued, at least in the UK, and gradually came to be known as Central Churchmanship.
William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham 1826-36
Van Mildert was a traditional High Churchman, steeped in the theology of the Early Fathers and the Caroline Divines. At first glance his statement looks paradoxical, but what he is getting at is the method of reform. That at the Reformation the Church of England used protestant ideas from the continent to slough off the accumulated abuses of the Middle Ages. Then, interpreting her new formularies in, as Archbishop Parker phrased it, "the most catholic sense" established a national Church which was reformed Catholic in character.
The Anglican Reformation was, in some ways, rather messy, and it owed rather a lot to some of the key players - Elizabeth I, Matthew Parker, and Lord Cecil. They crafted a broadly based Protestant Settlement of Religion that was governed by a conservative revision of the Book of Common Prayer, and from 1563 by the 39 Articles Although the Book of Common Prayer held up very well under pressure, apart from its provisions about vestments being ignored, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (hereafter XXXIX) were soon found to be capable of wide interpretation. The philosophy driving the Elizabethan Settlement was that of making a national Protestant and Episcopal Church. Doctrinally they had tried to comprehend both the Reformed (Calvinist) and Lutheran positions. The result was that the XXXIX largely reflected Lutheran theology except on the topic of Holy Communion where they veered towards the "spiritual presence' views of Cranmer's friend Martin Bucer (1491-1551).
For the first fifty years after 1559, most senior churchmen were High Church Calvinists, and interpreted the XXXIX in that way. They were basically Reformed in theology, but accepted the discipline and liturgy of the Church of England. However, after about 1585 there was a dissenting minority, who, once they became a discernable party, were called Arminians, and later High Churchmen, whose theology was more Patristic in inspiration. They gradually abandoned the Predestinarian theology of the Reformed party, and began preaching the doctrines of Free Wil, Baptismal Regeneration, the Centrality of Holy Communion, and the Divine origin of Episcopacy, all of which they found in the Fathers of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries. In the later years of James I and in the reign of Charles I they gradually came to be the dominant party in the Church of England, and after the brief Puritan victory of Cromwell's Commonwealth (1644-1660) they were triumphant in the Restoration Church.
The Patristic influenced "Reformed Catholic" theology that they developed and propagated was a dominant school of Anglican thought from the 1660s to the 1840s. From the Caroline Divines, the torch passed to the Non-Jurors, to High Church Whigs like John Potter and Edmund Gibbon, then to the "Orthodox Party" under George III and the Regency, and to E. Harold Browne, and the Wordsworth brothers who were the last major exponants of the tradition. This tradition was absorbed and radicalized by the Tractarians and the Prayer Book Catholics. The older moderate tradition also continued, at least in the UK, and gradually came to be known as Central Churchmanship.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Reformed Catholicism
There have been at least two attempts to rename a portion of the Protestant Episcopal Church as the Reformed Catholic Church. The first came in 1861 when the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church of the Confederate States met to discuss its constitution. Bishop Green of Mississippi suggested the name, only to have to withdraw it when the strength of Virginia's opposition became known. The second came at the General Convention of 1889, and failed by only three votes!
Why the fascination with the name "Reformed Catholic?"
Anglicans - even the ones who if pushed would call themselves "protestant" - feel a certain discomfort with the term. The source of that discomfort is the fact that the word "Protestant" means not only someone who protests against the errors and innovations of Roman Catholicism, but it also covers a multitude of denominations that have chucked out any concept of being "Catholic" in favour of Radical Biblicism. However, inspite of being used with a capital-R to cover Calvinism, the term "reformed" better encapsulates what Anglican feel happened in their reformation. The Anglican Reformers took the existing Church and reformed it. As one Anglican apologist retorted to a Roman Catholic who asked "Where was your Church before the Reformation?" - "Where was your face before you washed it this morning?"
Anglicans understand their church to be Catholic because of its continuity. After all, almost all Anglican bishops have both William Wareham, the last but one RC, and Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury in their Apostolic succession. Anglicans also have the Bible, the Creeds, a reformed Liturgy, the Sacraments, as well as that threefold Apostolic ministry. Anglicans have also stated in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral that they believe the Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments and Episcopal Ministry to be the marks of the Church.
So "reformed Catholic" reflects a great deal of the Anglican self-understanding as being in origin the Catholic Church of England reformed according to Scripture. Also, it isn't really a party label, the High Church Protestants of the eighteenth century used, as have some modern Anglo-Catholics, and in recent times, the Evangelical Scholar, Dr Peter Toon. The fact that it has been accepted as a describer for Anglicanism by men of various parties shows what a widespread appeal it has as a definer for Anglicanism.
Why the fascination with the name "Reformed Catholic?"
Anglicans - even the ones who if pushed would call themselves "protestant" - feel a certain discomfort with the term. The source of that discomfort is the fact that the word "Protestant" means not only someone who protests against the errors and innovations of Roman Catholicism, but it also covers a multitude of denominations that have chucked out any concept of being "Catholic" in favour of Radical Biblicism. However, inspite of being used with a capital-R to cover Calvinism, the term "reformed" better encapsulates what Anglican feel happened in their reformation. The Anglican Reformers took the existing Church and reformed it. As one Anglican apologist retorted to a Roman Catholic who asked "Where was your Church before the Reformation?" - "Where was your face before you washed it this morning?"
Anglicans understand their church to be Catholic because of its continuity. After all, almost all Anglican bishops have both William Wareham, the last but one RC, and Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury in their Apostolic succession. Anglicans also have the Bible, the Creeds, a reformed Liturgy, the Sacraments, as well as that threefold Apostolic ministry. Anglicans have also stated in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral that they believe the Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments and Episcopal Ministry to be the marks of the Church.
So "reformed Catholic" reflects a great deal of the Anglican self-understanding as being in origin the Catholic Church of England reformed according to Scripture. Also, it isn't really a party label, the High Church Protestants of the eighteenth century used, as have some modern Anglo-Catholics, and in recent times, the Evangelical Scholar, Dr Peter Toon. The fact that it has been accepted as a describer for Anglicanism by men of various parties shows what a widespread appeal it has as a definer for Anglicanism.
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