I want to take a moment and look at the mechanics of bringing together the various strands of the Continuum. I tend to see this in terms of clearing the site and laying the foundations for a reunited Continuum, and unglamourous though it is, it is essential if we are ever going to get over the past.
The first thing we need to do is deal with past grudges and unfortunate incidents. There is a lot of clinging to the past done in the Continuing Anglican world. Much of it is good in terms of hanging on to traditional theology and liturgy, but there are a lot of old grudges that are still being trotted out whenever half a dozen clergy and a bottle of gin get together. All of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions have made mistakes in the past, and we need to 'man up' and accept our jurisdictions role in the disintegation of the original Continuum. We also need to forgive and forget the various 'sins' that the assorted jurisdictions have committed against each other. Once we have done that we can get down to the nuts and bolts of what it is going to take to get us all back together.
I see the first stage as being what I call CABC - the Continuing Anglican Bishops Conference - consisting of the bishops of those jurisdictions closest to the St. Louis Congress, and gradually expanding to incorporate more and more groups as various misunderstandings are cleared up. The first name I came up with was the Standing Conference of Anglican Bishops - but, as a former Union man, SCAB seemed, well, inappropriate. This would have a dual role. Firstly it would act as a clearing house for discussion about and actions towards unity. Secondly, it would act as a clearing house to allow clergy to transfer between jurisdictions without it causing mutual recrimination, and also impose discipline across jurisdictional lines. Too often bishops and clergy have escaped the consequences of their actions by quietly slipping away to another jurisdiction. This process has done little to promote mutual trust. Thirdly, it would facilitate joint action on matters of mutual concern, and be a forum for the bishops of the various jurisdictions to get to know one another. Nothing breeds fear and mistrust better than being strangers to one's colleagues.
There will also be a need to come up with a common Constitution and Canons. This will help dispel the notion that one jurisdiction is swallowing another. One difficulty which will have to be resolved is the balance of authority between the various Houses of Synod. At present, there are slight differences of emphasis among the various major Continuing groups, though in the final analysis we all function in much the same way.
The third string is mutual cooperation. UECNA already cooperates with the ACC and with the APCK in a number of areas, and this has helped to draw the various layfolks, clergy and bishops involved closer together. Last weekend I ordained a deacon for the UECNA, who will also serve in an APCK parish in San Diego. I am pleased to note that the local APCK clergy turned out and some old friendships were renewed. I for one, would like to see much more of this inter-jurisdictional cooperation, but there are still 'pure pond' Continuers who let their own worries and concerns (many of which are legiimate, but not important) get in the way of reunion.
The goal for the Continuum should, for the time being, to do everything together that we do not absolutely have to do apart from one another. In the meantime, let us pray, and pray hard for unity, making sure that the devil gets as little opportunity as possible to plant the seeds of mistrust. The Right Rev. Maurice Wood, C of E Bishop of Norwich back in the 1970s, used to warn his ordinands that they were "all marked men in the Devil's book." In much the same way, the Anglican Continuum is marked in the devil's book because we seek to proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified without compromising with the prevailent political correctness of the age in which we live. As a result of this faithfulness to Christ, our infernal adversary will do his best to make sure that we remain fragmented and disorganised. Do we really want this to happen? If not, then we need to work for unity among ourselves that the fullness of the Gospel may be proclaimed, and souls saved to the Glory of God.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Politics of Fear
I am often asked, "Why is the Continuum such a mess of different jurisdictions?" I think in the final analysis the situation is was created by two differing understandings of what it means to be a 'Continuer' and it is perpetuated by the 'politics of fear.'
As I have written about the two different approahes before I won't bore you with a reprise other than to say that the initial divisions grew out of the suspicions that grew up between the "Middle to High Church" and Anglo-Catholic factions, and could have been avoided with better leadership. The Continuing Church became divided for much the same reasons that the Vikings never built an Empire. We had leaders, but, in the case of three of the original four, leaders who pulled in different directions. This led to the creation of the UECNA, APCK and ACC. The first tends towards a 'business as usual' interpretation of the Affirmation of St Louis within the context of a predominate "middle of the road" churchmanship . The Anglican Province of Christ the King has a similar tendancy, but within the context of a more Anglo-Catholic tradition coming from its founderers many of whom were associated with the American Church Union. The Anglican Catholic Church bridges the two in terms of worship tradition, but underwent an extensive revision of its Constitution and Canons which closed a lot of legal, jurisdictional and procedural loopholes, but left other matters, such as the status of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, studeously vague. All of this backroom work was done in the context of a church which was trying to establish congregations, acquire property, and establish a diocesan structure. To my mind, much of the work on the Canons (as opposed to the Constitution)could and should have been postponed until the church had achieved a measure of organisation stability. With hindsight (which as the song says 'is always 20-20) it seems to me that there was some significant misdirection of effort in the period 1979-1984 which may, and I stress, may have helped divide the Continuum. (I should perhaps add at this point, just so that you are all absolutely clear on this, that I have absolutely no animus against the ACC, especially as presently constituted. I was ordained in the ACC and only left because the Bishop of the Diocese in which I served had a high peculiar interpretation of the ACC Constitution and Canons.)
Having arrived at the point where the Continuum was divided, then the 'politics of fear' very largely took over. Although attempts at reconciliate were made, ultimately, what took over, and continues to divide the Anglican Continuum is what one might call "the fear of the other fellow." This is the down side of the sort of self-reliance that the Continuum has bred, and it tends to stop all attempts at union with negotiation sooner or later.
As a whole, the Continuum needs to get away from the 'politics of fear', and it will only do so if the bishops of the UECNA, APCK, and ACC meet on a regular basis. Unfortunately, that is not happening, and I think it is time that the bishops took note that, on the whole, the laity move between parishes in the different jurisdictions quite happily. They only note only that St. B's is a bit higher or lower, or a bit bigger or smaller, than St A's where they normally worship. Anecdotally, quite a few of the laity don't know which group their parish is in without looking it up. They are 'Anglicans' - they know who their bishop is and that is about it.
The paranoia about "the other fellow" seems to be largely a clergy thing. Though in all fairness I should perhaps note that there have been enough 'inter-jurisdictional incidents' for this paranoia to have some basis in fact. However, we need to forgive and forget, and in some cases a few well chosen words of apology would not go amiss either.
For the Continuum to survive into its third and fourth generations we to achieve a jurisdictional unity which reflects our unity of faith. That is the great task - after Mission and the Re-evangelisation of America - that faces us in the next ten years.
As I have written about the two different approahes before I won't bore you with a reprise other than to say that the initial divisions grew out of the suspicions that grew up between the "Middle to High Church" and Anglo-Catholic factions, and could have been avoided with better leadership. The Continuing Church became divided for much the same reasons that the Vikings never built an Empire. We had leaders, but, in the case of three of the original four, leaders who pulled in different directions. This led to the creation of the UECNA, APCK and ACC. The first tends towards a 'business as usual' interpretation of the Affirmation of St Louis within the context of a predominate "middle of the road" churchmanship . The Anglican Province of Christ the King has a similar tendancy, but within the context of a more Anglo-Catholic tradition coming from its founderers many of whom were associated with the American Church Union. The Anglican Catholic Church bridges the two in terms of worship tradition, but underwent an extensive revision of its Constitution and Canons which closed a lot of legal, jurisdictional and procedural loopholes, but left other matters, such as the status of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, studeously vague. All of this backroom work was done in the context of a church which was trying to establish congregations, acquire property, and establish a diocesan structure. To my mind, much of the work on the Canons (as opposed to the Constitution)could and should have been postponed until the church had achieved a measure of organisation stability. With hindsight (which as the song says 'is always 20-20) it seems to me that there was some significant misdirection of effort in the period 1979-1984 which may, and I stress, may have helped divide the Continuum. (I should perhaps add at this point, just so that you are all absolutely clear on this, that I have absolutely no animus against the ACC, especially as presently constituted. I was ordained in the ACC and only left because the Bishop of the Diocese in which I served had a high peculiar interpretation of the ACC Constitution and Canons.)
Having arrived at the point where the Continuum was divided, then the 'politics of fear' very largely took over. Although attempts at reconciliate were made, ultimately, what took over, and continues to divide the Anglican Continuum is what one might call "the fear of the other fellow." This is the down side of the sort of self-reliance that the Continuum has bred, and it tends to stop all attempts at union with negotiation sooner or later.
As a whole, the Continuum needs to get away from the 'politics of fear', and it will only do so if the bishops of the UECNA, APCK, and ACC meet on a regular basis. Unfortunately, that is not happening, and I think it is time that the bishops took note that, on the whole, the laity move between parishes in the different jurisdictions quite happily. They only note only that St. B's is a bit higher or lower, or a bit bigger or smaller, than St A's where they normally worship. Anecdotally, quite a few of the laity don't know which group their parish is in without looking it up. They are 'Anglicans' - they know who their bishop is and that is about it.
The paranoia about "the other fellow" seems to be largely a clergy thing. Though in all fairness I should perhaps note that there have been enough 'inter-jurisdictional incidents' for this paranoia to have some basis in fact. However, we need to forgive and forget, and in some cases a few well chosen words of apology would not go amiss either.
For the Continuum to survive into its third and fourth generations we to achieve a jurisdictional unity which reflects our unity of faith. That is the great task - after Mission and the Re-evangelisation of America - that faces us in the next ten years.
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Unity Problem
I have to be quite honest and say that, in human terms, I do not see there ever being a unified Continuing Anglican Church mainly because of the lack of agreement about what constitutes Anglicanism. This problem actually predates the emergence of Continuing Anglican in the 1960s and 70s, and probably goes back a century before that to when the "Rits" and the "Rats" were fighting for inclusion within the Anglican and Episcopal Churches.
Prior to 1833 there was pretty broad agreement as to the doctrinal position of the Church of England and its descendents. Anglicans were, to borrow a phrase from Lutheran historiography "Evangelical Catholics." The Evangelical party placed emphasis, obviously, on the Evangelical side of that inheritance, and the "High Church" party on the Catholic. The old Low Churchmen, the Latitudinarians, were really concensus protestants who, for political and theological reason chose ot to push Anglican distinctiveness and represented the main challenge to orthodoxy, but since the 1760s they had slowly declined into insignificance.
The real fun starts in the 1850s and 60s when the Ritualists and Liberals start to gain a following. The early Ritualists were, for the most part, traditional High Churchmen who wished to revive disused ceremonies. They had not yet developed the "advanced" notions of full-blown Anglo-Papalism which copied post-reformation Roman Catholic devotions to "tart up" the rather dowdy reality of Anglican worship.
On the other hand, the Victorian Liberal was an optimistic beast who believed that religion could be made scientific provided rigid adherence to the old Orthodoxies were not insisted upon. Chief among the leaders of Victorian Liberalism was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster in the 1860s and 70s, who believed that in order to be credible, Anglicanism had to slough off superstition and outmoded orthodoxies, and embrace a sort of religious Darwinism. Dean Stanley was also aware of the fact that the "superstition" of Ritualism could be used as a Trojan Horse to encourage Parliament to loosen the terms of subscription so that Liberalism could grow within the Church.
Stanley's "sotto voce" campaigning among the political elite achieved its aim in 1871 with the so-called "Shortened Services Act." This made some inconsequential changes to the 1662 BCP, but also went along with a measure that loosened the terms of subscription. Before 1871, ordinands had to subscribe that the Articles as being "agreeable to Scripture" i.e. that the Articles of Religion reflected Biblical Christianity. After 1871, ordinands were required only to "affirm" that they contain nothing contrary to Holy Scripture. This loosening of the terms of subscription was a far more effective way of undermining the authority of the Thirty-nine Articles than the tortured logic of John Henry Newman's Tract XC, and the looser terms of subscription did indeed make the Church safe for Liberalism.
One paradoxical result of this loosening of the terms of subscription was that as Ritualism morphed into modern Anglo-Catholicism. The extremists began to abandon the traditional Anglican standards of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion. The BCP was overlaid with devotions imported from contemporary Roman Catholic practice, and the XXXIX Articles were increasingly seen as "an historical document" that could be largely disgarded, except as a civil requirement for those being ordained. The Bishops pretty much blew their chance of containing Anglo-Catholic disobedience to the Canons of the Church of England by going along with Disraeli's "Public Worship Regulation Act, 1873." This attempted to strangle Ritualism by legal means, but its major flaw was that it set up a semi-secular court to adjudicate ritual cases. This gave the Ritualists, who stood for their own peculiar version of the separation of Church and State, the perfect excuse for ignoring the new Court. The new court, which replaced the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was seen as a seculiar court that was meddling in affairs beyond its competence. Unfortunately, so far as ritual (more accurately, ceremonial) matters were concerned, that level of competence was pretty low. The new court even managed to reverse some of the decisions of the Judicial Committee had made on the basis of the Ornaments Rubric, and Caroline practice. Prior to 1867, the Judicial Committee as successor to the old Court of Delegates had been pretty successful in keeping the liturgical peace if only because the Ritualists recognized that it was a Church Court of sorts. Two or three bishops usually served on the Judicial Committee when ecclesiastical cases came up, so they could not dismiss it as a mere secular tribunal. The worst result of the Public Worship Regulation was that it made "white martyrs" out of Ritualist priests who would rather go to prison for contempt of court than give up their ceremonial. As a result, this attempt at governmental enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline broke down entirely. Needless to say, a good deal of liturgical chaos followed.
Eventually, Archbishop E. W. Benson stepped in and used his authority as Primate of All England to take one particularly controversial case - that against the Bishop of Lincoln, Edward King - into his own jurisdiction. Benson's decision was to put an end to the use of the Pubic Worship Regulation Act. The PWR Act was quietly repealed a few years later, but by then it was impossible to repair the damage done to ecclesiastical discipline. However, Archbishop Benson's methodology had proved correct. Anglo-Catholics might question his decision, but they could not, without betraying their own principles deny his authority to make it.
In the end, Benson's judgement was all but an acquital for the Bishop of Lincoln, but it came too late to prevent the radicalization of the Anglo-Catholic movement. By the 1920s, Anglo-Catholicism had embarked on a programme to remodel the Church of England. Bishop Frank Weston called on his fellow Anglo-Catholics to "fight for their Tabernacles" but a more sinister development was the gradual replacement of the official Book of Common Prayer by the English Missal, and the Anglo-Papalist parishes where children were taught the 'Penny Catechism' not the Catechism of the Church of England. To many moderate churchmen, Anglo-Papalism was the cuckoo in the nest, but ecclesiastical discipline had so thoroughly broken down that there was little the bishops could do except boycott disobedient parishes and grumble about those priests under their authority who were "more Roman than the Pope." The Anglo-Papalist priest who said his Mass in Latin, ignored his Bishop, and tried to be as Roman as possible often had his bacon saved by a church patronage system that allowed laymen to appoint parish priests of their own choosing. This gave them considerable protection for episcopal attempts at discipline.
The PECUSA had nowhere near the same problems with Ritualism as the Church of England. Being an unestablished Church, American Anglo-Catholics could not argue that PECUSA's ecclesiastical courts were "secular tribunals" with no authority in church disciple, and after 1885, having seen severalattempts at placing Canonical restrictions on ceremonial fail. The Bishops then seem to have adopted a policy of trying to kill Anglo-Catholicism with kindness. Only the worst offenders ever got into trouble with the Bishops, and sometimes, when faced with Anglo-Catholic disobedience, the bishops would turn a blind eye, or seek to find a compromise. Generally speaking, even though Anglo-Catholics did occasionally feel they got a raw deal from their bishops, there was nowhere near the level of acrimony there had been in England. The Episcopal system of parishes electing their Rectors, rather than having them appointed by the Bishop or a Lay Patron as was the case in England, also served to damp down controversy. It was only when a parish unsuspectingly called a Ritualist that there was a "flare up."
However, American Anglo-Catholicism still developed in a way that made it a church within the Church. Anglo-catholics supplemented the BCP with unofficial prayers and devotions. This process finally culminated in the production such unofficial liturgical books as the American Missal, the Anglican Missal (American Edition), and the Anglican Breviary. These came to supplant the official Book of Common Prayer in the more enthusiastically Anglo-Catholic parishes. American Anglo-Catholicism also increasingly ignored not just the XXXIX Articles, but much of the Anglican theological tradition. Francis Hall's "Dogmatic Theology" represents this progressive rejection of the Protestant tradition in Anglicanism, and presents Anglican theology as being a species of Old Catholicism in which the achievements of the Reformers are often damned with faint praise.
Predictably, when the wheels fell off the Episcopal Church's Wagon in the radical sixties there were two differing versions of conservative Anglicanism looking for a way to perpetuate themselves. Both could agree on the centrality of Scripture, the three Creeds, and the Early Fathers and Councils, but were at odds about the degree to which the Reformation tradition should be perpetuated. One group, believing that the Elizabethan Settlement had failed, wanted to perpetuate traditional Anglo-Catholicism with only limited accomodation to those who were not prepare to go along with the whole programme. The other wished to perpetuate a pre-1960s Episcopalianism that would be mainly Central Churchmanship, but would encompass Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical minorities.
Sadly, after the St Louis Congress, these competing visions failed to coexist within the new church. Eventually schism resulted, and the situation was further complicatated by the existence of pre-1977 Continuing Anglican groups that had been largely ignored by the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen at the time of the St Louis Congress.
Inspite of the fact that there are now six major and several dozen minor Continuing Anglican jurisdictions within the USA, there are only really two versions of Continuing Anglicanism. The first step to unit has to be getting all the jurisdiction that share "Vision A" together, and likewise all the churches that share vision "B." After that has been achieved we can then explore the potential for vision "A" and vision "B" to come together in one church. At the moment, we are wading through alphabet soup and not dealing the different visions that produced it in the first place. Too often in the past we have tried to ignore the theology and treat our Continuing Anglican divisions as being purely political. As a result, we have had even more divisions. So let's get real here. We need need to first get to grips with what we mean by Anglican and Anglicanism, and then deal with the political stuff.
In the final analysis it may well be that the two visions of what Continuing Anglicanism are indeed incompatible. If that proves to be the case, let us be honest, and have two continuing churches which love and respect one another, rather than attempt a forced marriage between ultimately incompatible visions.
Prior to 1833 there was pretty broad agreement as to the doctrinal position of the Church of England and its descendents. Anglicans were, to borrow a phrase from Lutheran historiography "Evangelical Catholics." The Evangelical party placed emphasis, obviously, on the Evangelical side of that inheritance, and the "High Church" party on the Catholic. The old Low Churchmen, the Latitudinarians, were really concensus protestants who, for political and theological reason chose ot to push Anglican distinctiveness and represented the main challenge to orthodoxy, but since the 1760s they had slowly declined into insignificance.
The real fun starts in the 1850s and 60s when the Ritualists and Liberals start to gain a following. The early Ritualists were, for the most part, traditional High Churchmen who wished to revive disused ceremonies. They had not yet developed the "advanced" notions of full-blown Anglo-Papalism which copied post-reformation Roman Catholic devotions to "tart up" the rather dowdy reality of Anglican worship.
On the other hand, the Victorian Liberal was an optimistic beast who believed that religion could be made scientific provided rigid adherence to the old Orthodoxies were not insisted upon. Chief among the leaders of Victorian Liberalism was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster in the 1860s and 70s, who believed that in order to be credible, Anglicanism had to slough off superstition and outmoded orthodoxies, and embrace a sort of religious Darwinism. Dean Stanley was also aware of the fact that the "superstition" of Ritualism could be used as a Trojan Horse to encourage Parliament to loosen the terms of subscription so that Liberalism could grow within the Church.
Stanley's "sotto voce" campaigning among the political elite achieved its aim in 1871 with the so-called "Shortened Services Act." This made some inconsequential changes to the 1662 BCP, but also went along with a measure that loosened the terms of subscription. Before 1871, ordinands had to subscribe that the Articles as being "agreeable to Scripture" i.e. that the Articles of Religion reflected Biblical Christianity. After 1871, ordinands were required only to "affirm" that they contain nothing contrary to Holy Scripture. This loosening of the terms of subscription was a far more effective way of undermining the authority of the Thirty-nine Articles than the tortured logic of John Henry Newman's Tract XC, and the looser terms of subscription did indeed make the Church safe for Liberalism.
One paradoxical result of this loosening of the terms of subscription was that as Ritualism morphed into modern Anglo-Catholicism. The extremists began to abandon the traditional Anglican standards of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion. The BCP was overlaid with devotions imported from contemporary Roman Catholic practice, and the XXXIX Articles were increasingly seen as "an historical document" that could be largely disgarded, except as a civil requirement for those being ordained. The Bishops pretty much blew their chance of containing Anglo-Catholic disobedience to the Canons of the Church of England by going along with Disraeli's "Public Worship Regulation Act, 1873." This attempted to strangle Ritualism by legal means, but its major flaw was that it set up a semi-secular court to adjudicate ritual cases. This gave the Ritualists, who stood for their own peculiar version of the separation of Church and State, the perfect excuse for ignoring the new Court. The new court, which replaced the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was seen as a seculiar court that was meddling in affairs beyond its competence. Unfortunately, so far as ritual (more accurately, ceremonial) matters were concerned, that level of competence was pretty low. The new court even managed to reverse some of the decisions of the Judicial Committee had made on the basis of the Ornaments Rubric, and Caroline practice. Prior to 1867, the Judicial Committee as successor to the old Court of Delegates had been pretty successful in keeping the liturgical peace if only because the Ritualists recognized that it was a Church Court of sorts. Two or three bishops usually served on the Judicial Committee when ecclesiastical cases came up, so they could not dismiss it as a mere secular tribunal. The worst result of the Public Worship Regulation was that it made "white martyrs" out of Ritualist priests who would rather go to prison for contempt of court than give up their ceremonial. As a result, this attempt at governmental enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline broke down entirely. Needless to say, a good deal of liturgical chaos followed.
Eventually, Archbishop E. W. Benson stepped in and used his authority as Primate of All England to take one particularly controversial case - that against the Bishop of Lincoln, Edward King - into his own jurisdiction. Benson's decision was to put an end to the use of the Pubic Worship Regulation Act. The PWR Act was quietly repealed a few years later, but by then it was impossible to repair the damage done to ecclesiastical discipline. However, Archbishop Benson's methodology had proved correct. Anglo-Catholics might question his decision, but they could not, without betraying their own principles deny his authority to make it.
In the end, Benson's judgement was all but an acquital for the Bishop of Lincoln, but it came too late to prevent the radicalization of the Anglo-Catholic movement. By the 1920s, Anglo-Catholicism had embarked on a programme to remodel the Church of England. Bishop Frank Weston called on his fellow Anglo-Catholics to "fight for their Tabernacles" but a more sinister development was the gradual replacement of the official Book of Common Prayer by the English Missal, and the Anglo-Papalist parishes where children were taught the 'Penny Catechism' not the Catechism of the Church of England. To many moderate churchmen, Anglo-Papalism was the cuckoo in the nest, but ecclesiastical discipline had so thoroughly broken down that there was little the bishops could do except boycott disobedient parishes and grumble about those priests under their authority who were "more Roman than the Pope." The Anglo-Papalist priest who said his Mass in Latin, ignored his Bishop, and tried to be as Roman as possible often had his bacon saved by a church patronage system that allowed laymen to appoint parish priests of their own choosing. This gave them considerable protection for episcopal attempts at discipline.
The PECUSA had nowhere near the same problems with Ritualism as the Church of England. Being an unestablished Church, American Anglo-Catholics could not argue that PECUSA's ecclesiastical courts were "secular tribunals" with no authority in church disciple, and after 1885, having seen severalattempts at placing Canonical restrictions on ceremonial fail. The Bishops then seem to have adopted a policy of trying to kill Anglo-Catholicism with kindness. Only the worst offenders ever got into trouble with the Bishops, and sometimes, when faced with Anglo-Catholic disobedience, the bishops would turn a blind eye, or seek to find a compromise. Generally speaking, even though Anglo-Catholics did occasionally feel they got a raw deal from their bishops, there was nowhere near the level of acrimony there had been in England. The Episcopal system of parishes electing their Rectors, rather than having them appointed by the Bishop or a Lay Patron as was the case in England, also served to damp down controversy. It was only when a parish unsuspectingly called a Ritualist that there was a "flare up."
However, American Anglo-Catholicism still developed in a way that made it a church within the Church. Anglo-catholics supplemented the BCP with unofficial prayers and devotions. This process finally culminated in the production such unofficial liturgical books as the American Missal, the Anglican Missal (American Edition), and the Anglican Breviary. These came to supplant the official Book of Common Prayer in the more enthusiastically Anglo-Catholic parishes. American Anglo-Catholicism also increasingly ignored not just the XXXIX Articles, but much of the Anglican theological tradition. Francis Hall's "Dogmatic Theology" represents this progressive rejection of the Protestant tradition in Anglicanism, and presents Anglican theology as being a species of Old Catholicism in which the achievements of the Reformers are often damned with faint praise.
Predictably, when the wheels fell off the Episcopal Church's Wagon in the radical sixties there were two differing versions of conservative Anglicanism looking for a way to perpetuate themselves. Both could agree on the centrality of Scripture, the three Creeds, and the Early Fathers and Councils, but were at odds about the degree to which the Reformation tradition should be perpetuated. One group, believing that the Elizabethan Settlement had failed, wanted to perpetuate traditional Anglo-Catholicism with only limited accomodation to those who were not prepare to go along with the whole programme. The other wished to perpetuate a pre-1960s Episcopalianism that would be mainly Central Churchmanship, but would encompass Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical minorities.
Sadly, after the St Louis Congress, these competing visions failed to coexist within the new church. Eventually schism resulted, and the situation was further complicatated by the existence of pre-1977 Continuing Anglican groups that had been largely ignored by the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen at the time of the St Louis Congress.
Inspite of the fact that there are now six major and several dozen minor Continuing Anglican jurisdictions within the USA, there are only really two versions of Continuing Anglicanism. The first step to unit has to be getting all the jurisdiction that share "Vision A" together, and likewise all the churches that share vision "B." After that has been achieved we can then explore the potential for vision "A" and vision "B" to come together in one church. At the moment, we are wading through alphabet soup and not dealing the different visions that produced it in the first place. Too often in the past we have tried to ignore the theology and treat our Continuing Anglican divisions as being purely political. As a result, we have had even more divisions. So let's get real here. We need need to first get to grips with what we mean by Anglican and Anglicanism, and then deal with the political stuff.
In the final analysis it may well be that the two visions of what Continuing Anglicanism are indeed incompatible. If that proves to be the case, let us be honest, and have two continuing churches which love and respect one another, rather than attempt a forced marriage between ultimately incompatible visions.
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Scottish Influence on American Anglicanism
The first thing that I have to say is that this is not just another "Samuel Seabury and all that" article, though he will feature later on. The Scottish influence on American Anglicanism is wider and deeper than that mainly due to the political forces at work in Scotland, and the difficulty of recruiting clergy for the Colonies.
When the Bishop of Edinburgh declined to give allegiance to William of Orange (ironically, I am writing this on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne) he left the door open for the replacement of Episcopalianism with Presbyterianism as the form of governance for the Church of Scotland. Although in some places the old Episcopalian clergy could fly under the radar and retain their parishes, in other places, especially in the Lowlands they were "rabbled out" by the Presbyterians. Some went underground, some went to England, and others to America. These became the first wave of Scottish Episcopal clergy to come to the aid of the Church in the American Colonies.
Perhaps the best know of this first wave is the Rev'd James Blair, the Bishop of London's Commissary for Virginia 1689-1743. Blair was born and educated in Scotland and ordained in the Episcopal Church. He gained the confidence of Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, and was sent out to Virginia to act as the bishops agent in that Colony. His major influence came not so much through the Church as through his Presidency of William and Mary College where he had a hand in the education of several generations of Virginia ordinands.
Three other names among the early Commissaries suggest Scottish origins. These are Alexander Garden, Jacob Henderson, and Archibald Cummings, but I have not yet got around to tracking down any biographical information about them.
The second wave of Scottish Episcopal clergy probably came to America in the wake of the 1715 Rising - a period when things were made very difficult for Scottish Episcopalians due to their known Jacobite sympathies. However, the evidence here is harder to track. It was in this period too, that a pair of Non-Juring Bishops were sent to the American Colonies in the hope of creating an independent Anglican presence in bishopless America. Unfortunately for them, American Anglicans preferred bishopless legitimacy to a Non-Juror Episcopate.
The third generation of Scottish clergy included men like William Smith of Maryland, who were the descendents of Scottish colonists. There were also some Scottish clergy who found it convenient to leave for America after the 1745 Rising. It seems that some of these dispossessed Episcopalian clergy joined the ranks of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel's Missionaries in New England spreading the Scottish version of the High Church tradition there.
Although the numbers of Scottish clergy serving in the American Church was never large, it was enough to create an awareness of the fact that - firstly, it was possible for Anglicans to survive without the Establishment; and secondly, that there was an independent Church in Scotland with bishops. Also, there was just enough Scottish influence in New England to give a distinct High Church edge to the Anglican Church in those parts, and to create an indigenous High Church party with followers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.
So, what happened to the Scottish Episcopal Church in the meantime?
After years of proscription under William and Mary, Queen Anne granted toleration to the Scottish Episcopalians early in her reign. This put the Scottish Episcopalians under the same disabilities as English Dissenters, but it was a step forward. A few years later, in 1712, the UK Parliament passed an Act allowing the creation of "Qualified Chapels" in Scotland which would allow Scottish congregations to use the 1662 BCP under the ministry of English or Irish ordained clergy.
On the other hand, the Jacobite element accepted their second class status, and maintained both their independence and their links with the English Non-Jurors. Unlike the Qualified Congregations, there was little, at least at first, to distinguish the Scottish Episcopalians from their Presbyterian neighbours when it came to worship. The "Piskies" service consisted of metrical psalms, a reading, a prayer, and a sermon like that of the Kirk, but unlike the Kirk, they used the Lord's Prayer and the Doxology every week.
After about 1700, the English BCP began to gain ground among Scottish Episcopalians, but they did not feel bound to observe it strictly. Thus, they were able to participate in the liturgical experiments of their Non-Juror colleagues in England. The first Non-Juror "Scottish Liturgy" or "Scottish Communion Office" appeared around 1717, with updated versions appearing in 1746 and 1764. These were printed as "wee bookies" to be used alongside the English BCP - a tradition that continued until the Edwardian era. The main feature of the Scottish Liturgy was the long Canon based on Eastern Orthodox models, consisting of both he Eucharistic Prayer and the Prayer for the Church. The Scots also included an epiclesis - an Invocation of the Holy Spirit - in the Prayer of Consecration.
However, inspite of their liturgical creativity, they were fighting a loosing battle. The limited Toleration granted in 1706 was diminished after both the 1715 and 1745 Risings. Under George I there was also a very real attempt to promote the erection of Qualified Chapels to syphon away middle class Episcopalians from the Non-Jurors. A tactic that was reasonably successful in the Lowlands. However, the Non-Juring Scottish Episcopalians survives - especially around Aberdeen.
Where Episcopalian Meeting Houses were built in the eighteenth century they were made to look like barns, or cottages so that they would not attract unwelcome attention from government troops. On the whole this worked well, but when Butcher Cumberland's troops were making reprisals after Colloden, Episcopal meeting houses were a favourite target. A large number of Episcopal priests were imprisoned on, often trumped-up, charges of sedition, and several were executed for acting as chaplains to the Jacobite Army in the '45.
When grudging toleration returned again following the 1745 Rising it was under very restrictive conditions. Just as the Government tried to ban the kilt and the Great Highland Bagpipes, they also tried to make Episcopalianism impossible. For example, no Episcopal Minister could preach to a congregation of more than four people outside of his own family. This led to a new form of creativity - how to dodge the regulations! In many places Episcopalians met in a cottage with the minister and his family in the hallway, and the rest of the congregation gathered in the other rooms listening through the doorways. In others, the chapel was divided with glass and wood partitions so that each pew was a "room." No matter how hard the Hannoverians tried, the Episcopalians would not conform, though, by the 1780s it was reduced to a mere four or five bishops, forty clergy, and a similar number of congregations mainly in the northeast of Scotland.
After trying unsuccessfully to obtain consecration in England, Samuel Seabury (1729-1796) came to Aberdeen looking for the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Some accounts say that he did this on the advice of either Dr. Horne (later Bishop of Norwich) who was sympathetic to the Scottish Church, others on the then young Dr. Routh, but scholars today seem to agree that this was the agreed "Plan B" before Seabury left Connecticut.
The Scottish Bishops drove a reasonably bargin with Seabury. Before his consecration he agreed to labour behind the scenes to introduce the Scottish liturgy into America. Seabury was also to push the case for the American Episcopal Church to recognise the Scottish Episcopal Church. Therefore, Seabury's consecration took place on 14th November 1784 in St Andrew's Church, which was housed over a bank in Aberdeen High Street. Bishops Skinner, Kilgour, and Petrie acting as his consecrators.
On his return to Connecticut, Seabury organised his diocese along Scottish lines. Seabury toured his diocese periodically, he called clergy-only Synods to determine policy, and replaced the English Communion service with his own version of the Scottish Liturgy. He also entered into tortuous negotiations with the Protestant Episcopal Church organising in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern States. A dialogue which was not made any easier by Seabury's Tory past, and clericalist outlook.
It was probably providential that the Right Rev. William White of Philadelphia was the dominant influence in the new PECUSA. The other English consecrated bishop, Provoost of New York, hated Seabury's guts, and if he had been the Presiding Bishop we might have ended up with regional Episcopal Churches. Eventually Bishop White brokered a deal whereby the Diocese of Connecticut and its bishop could come into the General Convention on generous terms. White encouraged the replacement of English Prayer of Consecration by that of the Scottish Liturgy in the new American BCP. He also revised the PECUSA Constitution to incorporate an Episcopal veto - which was a further accomodation to Seabury's views. Lastly, White pushed for recognition of the Scottish Church alongside the Estabished Churches of England and Ireland as fellow Protestant Episcopal Churches. White also agreed to seat Seabury in the House of Bishops, despite Provoost's strident objections to the propriety of accepting his Seabury's Non-Juror orders. On the other hand, Seabury remained uncomfortable with the presence of the laity in the General Convention, and with the democratic nature of the new Church.
Such had been the depth of Seabury's objections to the proposed Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church that he had attempted to get further bishops conscrated in Scotland. This would have enabled him to "go it alone" by forming a New England Church independent of that of the Middle and Southern States. However, the Scots, following the death of the Young Pretender, were in the process of making their peace with the British Government. The Scots' refusal to consecrate more bishops for America finally gave Seabury a powerful reason to make peace with the Protestant Episcopal Church.
One final point that has to be ade is that William White and William Smith were not altogether without Scottish influences. For example, one characteristic White decision - to create a House of Bishops with a Presiding Bishop rather than an Archbishop - finds its precedent in the Scottish House of Bishops presided over by the Primus. White was also open to making real changes, not just political ones, to the English BCP. One suspects that it was this openness on the part of Bishop White and Dr. Smith that allowed the American BCP to develop as a compromise betwen the English and Scots traditions.
Oddly, the Scottish Episcopal Church also had to make its own compromise with Church of England influences in order to achieve peace. In order to have the Penal Laws removed, the Scottish Episcopal Church had to agree to pray for King George. Later they accepted the English BCP and the Thirty-Nine Articles to allow the Scottish Church to absorb the Qualified Chapels. So like the Episcopal Church in America, the Scottish Episcopal Church found itself reconciling Scottish Non-Juror and English influences to produce a reinvigorated local Church.
One enduring legacy of the relationship between Seabury and the Scottish Bishops has been the bonds of affection that have existed between Scottish and American Episcopalians. It is sad to see both churches sobadly infected with liberalism today, but it remains the case that the old Episcopal tradition, as it stood before the invasion of secular humanism from 1960 onwards, is a strong a vigourous expression of Reformed Catholic Christianity. In order for Continuing Anglicanism to survive it is extremely important that Continuing Anglicans return to that tradition, rather than that of Revivalist Protestantism, or Rome.
When the Bishop of Edinburgh declined to give allegiance to William of Orange (ironically, I am writing this on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne) he left the door open for the replacement of Episcopalianism with Presbyterianism as the form of governance for the Church of Scotland. Although in some places the old Episcopalian clergy could fly under the radar and retain their parishes, in other places, especially in the Lowlands they were "rabbled out" by the Presbyterians. Some went underground, some went to England, and others to America. These became the first wave of Scottish Episcopal clergy to come to the aid of the Church in the American Colonies.
Perhaps the best know of this first wave is the Rev'd James Blair, the Bishop of London's Commissary for Virginia 1689-1743. Blair was born and educated in Scotland and ordained in the Episcopal Church. He gained the confidence of Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, and was sent out to Virginia to act as the bishops agent in that Colony. His major influence came not so much through the Church as through his Presidency of William and Mary College where he had a hand in the education of several generations of Virginia ordinands.
Three other names among the early Commissaries suggest Scottish origins. These are Alexander Garden, Jacob Henderson, and Archibald Cummings, but I have not yet got around to tracking down any biographical information about them.
The second wave of Scottish Episcopal clergy probably came to America in the wake of the 1715 Rising - a period when things were made very difficult for Scottish Episcopalians due to their known Jacobite sympathies. However, the evidence here is harder to track. It was in this period too, that a pair of Non-Juring Bishops were sent to the American Colonies in the hope of creating an independent Anglican presence in bishopless America. Unfortunately for them, American Anglicans preferred bishopless legitimacy to a Non-Juror Episcopate.
The third generation of Scottish clergy included men like William Smith of Maryland, who were the descendents of Scottish colonists. There were also some Scottish clergy who found it convenient to leave for America after the 1745 Rising. It seems that some of these dispossessed Episcopalian clergy joined the ranks of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel's Missionaries in New England spreading the Scottish version of the High Church tradition there.
Although the numbers of Scottish clergy serving in the American Church was never large, it was enough to create an awareness of the fact that - firstly, it was possible for Anglicans to survive without the Establishment; and secondly, that there was an independent Church in Scotland with bishops. Also, there was just enough Scottish influence in New England to give a distinct High Church edge to the Anglican Church in those parts, and to create an indigenous High Church party with followers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.
So, what happened to the Scottish Episcopal Church in the meantime?
After years of proscription under William and Mary, Queen Anne granted toleration to the Scottish Episcopalians early in her reign. This put the Scottish Episcopalians under the same disabilities as English Dissenters, but it was a step forward. A few years later, in 1712, the UK Parliament passed an Act allowing the creation of "Qualified Chapels" in Scotland which would allow Scottish congregations to use the 1662 BCP under the ministry of English or Irish ordained clergy.
On the other hand, the Jacobite element accepted their second class status, and maintained both their independence and their links with the English Non-Jurors. Unlike the Qualified Congregations, there was little, at least at first, to distinguish the Scottish Episcopalians from their Presbyterian neighbours when it came to worship. The "Piskies" service consisted of metrical psalms, a reading, a prayer, and a sermon like that of the Kirk, but unlike the Kirk, they used the Lord's Prayer and the Doxology every week.
After about 1700, the English BCP began to gain ground among Scottish Episcopalians, but they did not feel bound to observe it strictly. Thus, they were able to participate in the liturgical experiments of their Non-Juror colleagues in England. The first Non-Juror "Scottish Liturgy" or "Scottish Communion Office" appeared around 1717, with updated versions appearing in 1746 and 1764. These were printed as "wee bookies" to be used alongside the English BCP - a tradition that continued until the Edwardian era. The main feature of the Scottish Liturgy was the long Canon based on Eastern Orthodox models, consisting of both he Eucharistic Prayer and the Prayer for the Church. The Scots also included an epiclesis - an Invocation of the Holy Spirit - in the Prayer of Consecration.
However, inspite of their liturgical creativity, they were fighting a loosing battle. The limited Toleration granted in 1706 was diminished after both the 1715 and 1745 Risings. Under George I there was also a very real attempt to promote the erection of Qualified Chapels to syphon away middle class Episcopalians from the Non-Jurors. A tactic that was reasonably successful in the Lowlands. However, the Non-Juring Scottish Episcopalians survives - especially around Aberdeen.
Where Episcopalian Meeting Houses were built in the eighteenth century they were made to look like barns, or cottages so that they would not attract unwelcome attention from government troops. On the whole this worked well, but when Butcher Cumberland's troops were making reprisals after Colloden, Episcopal meeting houses were a favourite target. A large number of Episcopal priests were imprisoned on, often trumped-up, charges of sedition, and several were executed for acting as chaplains to the Jacobite Army in the '45.
When grudging toleration returned again following the 1745 Rising it was under very restrictive conditions. Just as the Government tried to ban the kilt and the Great Highland Bagpipes, they also tried to make Episcopalianism impossible. For example, no Episcopal Minister could preach to a congregation of more than four people outside of his own family. This led to a new form of creativity - how to dodge the regulations! In many places Episcopalians met in a cottage with the minister and his family in the hallway, and the rest of the congregation gathered in the other rooms listening through the doorways. In others, the chapel was divided with glass and wood partitions so that each pew was a "room." No matter how hard the Hannoverians tried, the Episcopalians would not conform, though, by the 1780s it was reduced to a mere four or five bishops, forty clergy, and a similar number of congregations mainly in the northeast of Scotland.
After trying unsuccessfully to obtain consecration in England, Samuel Seabury (1729-1796) came to Aberdeen looking for the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Some accounts say that he did this on the advice of either Dr. Horne (later Bishop of Norwich) who was sympathetic to the Scottish Church, others on the then young Dr. Routh, but scholars today seem to agree that this was the agreed "Plan B" before Seabury left Connecticut.
The Scottish Bishops drove a reasonably bargin with Seabury. Before his consecration he agreed to labour behind the scenes to introduce the Scottish liturgy into America. Seabury was also to push the case for the American Episcopal Church to recognise the Scottish Episcopal Church. Therefore, Seabury's consecration took place on 14th November 1784 in St Andrew's Church, which was housed over a bank in Aberdeen High Street. Bishops Skinner, Kilgour, and Petrie acting as his consecrators.
On his return to Connecticut, Seabury organised his diocese along Scottish lines. Seabury toured his diocese periodically, he called clergy-only Synods to determine policy, and replaced the English Communion service with his own version of the Scottish Liturgy. He also entered into tortuous negotiations with the Protestant Episcopal Church organising in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern States. A dialogue which was not made any easier by Seabury's Tory past, and clericalist outlook.
It was probably providential that the Right Rev. William White of Philadelphia was the dominant influence in the new PECUSA. The other English consecrated bishop, Provoost of New York, hated Seabury's guts, and if he had been the Presiding Bishop we might have ended up with regional Episcopal Churches. Eventually Bishop White brokered a deal whereby the Diocese of Connecticut and its bishop could come into the General Convention on generous terms. White encouraged the replacement of English Prayer of Consecration by that of the Scottish Liturgy in the new American BCP. He also revised the PECUSA Constitution to incorporate an Episcopal veto - which was a further accomodation to Seabury's views. Lastly, White pushed for recognition of the Scottish Church alongside the Estabished Churches of England and Ireland as fellow Protestant Episcopal Churches. White also agreed to seat Seabury in the House of Bishops, despite Provoost's strident objections to the propriety of accepting his Seabury's Non-Juror orders. On the other hand, Seabury remained uncomfortable with the presence of the laity in the General Convention, and with the democratic nature of the new Church.
Such had been the depth of Seabury's objections to the proposed Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church that he had attempted to get further bishops conscrated in Scotland. This would have enabled him to "go it alone" by forming a New England Church independent of that of the Middle and Southern States. However, the Scots, following the death of the Young Pretender, were in the process of making their peace with the British Government. The Scots' refusal to consecrate more bishops for America finally gave Seabury a powerful reason to make peace with the Protestant Episcopal Church.
One final point that has to be ade is that William White and William Smith were not altogether without Scottish influences. For example, one characteristic White decision - to create a House of Bishops with a Presiding Bishop rather than an Archbishop - finds its precedent in the Scottish House of Bishops presided over by the Primus. White was also open to making real changes, not just political ones, to the English BCP. One suspects that it was this openness on the part of Bishop White and Dr. Smith that allowed the American BCP to develop as a compromise betwen the English and Scots traditions.
Oddly, the Scottish Episcopal Church also had to make its own compromise with Church of England influences in order to achieve peace. In order to have the Penal Laws removed, the Scottish Episcopal Church had to agree to pray for King George. Later they accepted the English BCP and the Thirty-Nine Articles to allow the Scottish Church to absorb the Qualified Chapels. So like the Episcopal Church in America, the Scottish Episcopal Church found itself reconciling Scottish Non-Juror and English influences to produce a reinvigorated local Church.
One enduring legacy of the relationship between Seabury and the Scottish Bishops has been the bonds of affection that have existed between Scottish and American Episcopalians. It is sad to see both churches sobadly infected with liberalism today, but it remains the case that the old Episcopal tradition, as it stood before the invasion of secular humanism from 1960 onwards, is a strong a vigourous expression of Reformed Catholic Christianity. In order for Continuing Anglicanism to survive it is extremely important that Continuing Anglicans return to that tradition, rather than that of Revivalist Protestantism, or Rome.
Friday, July 2, 2010
A Broad Church
Growing up in the UK, I got quite used to the idea of Evangelicals, Central Churchmen and Anglo-Catholics rubbing along in a certain sort of creative tension. Anglicans were used by the Thirty-nine Articles, the BCP, and the form of ministry, and although there were times when the Evangelicals and the Anglo-Catholics were on screaming terms rather than speaking terms we respected each other even when we thought the other chap was barking mad. Unfortunately the last thirty years have been so traumatic that the Church has become fragmented, and as a result, we need to learn to live toether again.
The Revisionist agenda - women's rights, gay rights, theological revisionism - has polarized the Anglican tradition Revisionist and Conservative camps that really have very little to say to one another. They do not have the same way of doing the theology. Conservatives look at Scripture, then with the help of the Early Fathers and Reason fathom out what is orthodoxy. The more extreme Revisionists start from the position that there is no orthodoxy, but God speaks anew to every generation, and that Scripture, the Fathers are relics of the past that need to be reinterpreted (rewritten?) to reflect modern understandings. It is very difficult to have a debate when you cannot even agree on the rules of engagement.
To my mind, the more sinister is the wedge that has been driven between the Evangelical Anglican and Anglo-Catholic traditions. Both groups accept the authority of the Canonical Scriptures, the Creeds, the historic male Episcopate, and the first four Councils; both are theologically conservative, and both are profoundly concerned with the salvation of souls. This has increasingly pushed them into differing strands of extra-mural Anglicanism - Evangelicals into AMiA, and Anglo-Catholics into the Continuum. For me, the Central Churchman, this is a disaster because in order to be fully itself Anglicanism needs to breath with both lungs - the Catholic and the Reformed. The Evangelicals need to the Anglo-Catholics to hold their feet to the fire about the Fathers, Councils, and Apostolic Ministry, and the Catholics need the Evangelicals to remind them of the centrality and sufficiency of Scripture. When each of the three strands of Anglicanism tries to live on its there is always a danger that it will become a parody of itself.
The fact that we have to some extent grown apart and become astranged means that bring conservative Anglicans back together is going to be a long process. In the mean time, even though we choose to work in different jurisdictions, we should perhaps seek out those from other traditions within Anglicanism and listen to them; not to be converted to their position, but to allow their insights to broaden our perceptions. There is an old adage that "the Church that lives by itself will die by itself," and there is a very great danger that by abandoning the "broadness" of the Anglican tradition we Continuing Anglicans will all somehow cease to be Anglican. So often Christianity - especially Anglican Christianity - is about living with the paradoxes, the greatest of which is the paradox of grace - we are sinners, yet justified. Anglicans live with another paradox - we are "reformed and yet catholic," or, if you prefer, "catholic, yet reformed." This tension between Catholic and Reformed is what has made Anglicanism so creative, and so attractive to so many people. You do not have to choose between the insights of the Reformation and the Catholic tradition, you can embrace both - provided that you can cope with the mess that that sometimes creates.
The Revisionist agenda - women's rights, gay rights, theological revisionism - has polarized the Anglican tradition Revisionist and Conservative camps that really have very little to say to one another. They do not have the same way of doing the theology. Conservatives look at Scripture, then with the help of the Early Fathers and Reason fathom out what is orthodoxy. The more extreme Revisionists start from the position that there is no orthodoxy, but God speaks anew to every generation, and that Scripture, the Fathers are relics of the past that need to be reinterpreted (rewritten?) to reflect modern understandings. It is very difficult to have a debate when you cannot even agree on the rules of engagement.
To my mind, the more sinister is the wedge that has been driven between the Evangelical Anglican and Anglo-Catholic traditions. Both groups accept the authority of the Canonical Scriptures, the Creeds, the historic male Episcopate, and the first four Councils; both are theologically conservative, and both are profoundly concerned with the salvation of souls. This has increasingly pushed them into differing strands of extra-mural Anglicanism - Evangelicals into AMiA, and Anglo-Catholics into the Continuum. For me, the Central Churchman, this is a disaster because in order to be fully itself Anglicanism needs to breath with both lungs - the Catholic and the Reformed. The Evangelicals need to the Anglo-Catholics to hold their feet to the fire about the Fathers, Councils, and Apostolic Ministry, and the Catholics need the Evangelicals to remind them of the centrality and sufficiency of Scripture. When each of the three strands of Anglicanism tries to live on its there is always a danger that it will become a parody of itself.
The fact that we have to some extent grown apart and become astranged means that bring conservative Anglicans back together is going to be a long process. In the mean time, even though we choose to work in different jurisdictions, we should perhaps seek out those from other traditions within Anglicanism and listen to them; not to be converted to their position, but to allow their insights to broaden our perceptions. There is an old adage that "the Church that lives by itself will die by itself," and there is a very great danger that by abandoning the "broadness" of the Anglican tradition we Continuing Anglicans will all somehow cease to be Anglican. So often Christianity - especially Anglican Christianity - is about living with the paradoxes, the greatest of which is the paradox of grace - we are sinners, yet justified. Anglicans live with another paradox - we are "reformed and yet catholic," or, if you prefer, "catholic, yet reformed." This tension between Catholic and Reformed is what has made Anglicanism so creative, and so attractive to so many people. You do not have to choose between the insights of the Reformation and the Catholic tradition, you can embrace both - provided that you can cope with the mess that that sometimes creates.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Irish High Church Tradition
It might come as a surprise to those who know a little about the Church of Ireland to know that there was a High Church tradition in Ireland. The main reason for this has to be the post-disestablishment Canons which clamped down on all and any attempt at making ritual innovations. However, due to its lack of liturgical hang-ups other than following the BCP, Tractarianism found a home in Ireland.
The best know exponants of the Tractarian tradition on the Irish bench were Richard Chenevix Trench 1807-1887 (Archbishop of Dublin 1861-1886) and William Alexander 1824-1911 (Derry and Raphoe 1867-1894; Armagh 1894-1910). Both were minor poets, and both had picked up the "high seriousness" of Tractarianism during their times in the English University. Of the two, William Alexander seemed to connect more easily with Irish Clerical life. His ministry at Fahan in Co. Donegal, his happy marriage to hymnodist Cecil Frances Alexander, and sunny nature made him very popular. The more "English" Trench was somewhat disliked in Dublin, where the majority of enthusiastic Churchmen would have preferred an Evangelical. Both worked quietly to broaden the outlooks of their dioceses, though it has to be said that Trench was the more successful in promoting "Church Ideals."
Trench's time in Dublin saw the establishment of three "Anglo-Catholic" parishes - St Bartholomew's, Dublin; and St John's, Sandymount; and to a lesser extent, Christ Church, Leeson Park; which joined All Saints', Grangegorman, as exponants of the Tractarian tradition in Ireland. All three had daily Communion, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer whilst keeping just inside the ceremonial restrictions then current in the Church of Ireland. They maintained the North end position at Holy Communion; lit the altar candles only for the purposes of giving light; but also scheduled Confession. Periodically one of them would "get brave" and challenge the interpretation of the rubrics, but such attempts usually resulted in a case being brought in the Court of the General Synod.
This brings me to the most influential of Irish High Churchmen - John Allan Fitzgerald Gregg (1873-1961) a member of the firm of "Gregg, Son and Grandson, Bishops to the Church of Ireland!" His uncle and grandfather were Evangelicals, but J.A.F. was born and educated in England and picked up Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic ideas both at Bedford School and at Cambridge. However, rather than stay in England and become a "spike," he decided to go to back to his family's native Ireland where he was ordained in the Diocese of Down and Connor, and Dromore. Curacies in Ballymena and Cork ensued, then a spell as Rector of Blackrock 1906-11, then four years as Divinity Professor at TCD before election as Bishop of Ossory, Leighlin and Ferns at the early age of 42. Translation to Dublin followed in 1920; then to Armagh in 1939, where he stayed until his retirement in 1959, aged 85.
One painful aspect of his ministry in Dublin was having to adjudicate the cases brought against two of the High Church parishes in Dublin. The first involved St Bartholomew's, Dublin, where C. B. Moss (yes, that C. B. Moss!) was Curate Assistant, and the second involved St John's, Sandymount. In both cases, Archbishop Gregg upheld the Canons of the Church of Ireland whilst conceeding lesser points to the rectors of the respective churches. Gregg himself thought the Canons too restrictive, but with his respect for law, he was not going to engage in any sort of prophetic activism.
Known to his clergy as "The Marble Arch" Gregg appeared in public to be aloof and self-contained. This was a by-product of the Tractarian seriousness that he absorbed school and university. In private he could be a warm and approachable man - especially in his later years. He was probably at his best when dealing with clergy. Despite his austere appearence and manner, he was often very compassionate with his clergy who experienced difficulties, and he took a great deal of time and effort with his ordinands, as one of my own mentors could testify.
Gregg's variety of High Churchmanship resembled that of Gore and the "Lux Mundi" school. He was prepared to accept the positive contribution of Biblical Scholarship and acknowledge the role of history in shaping the theology and institutions of the church, but was unyielding in his adherence to the Sacraments, to the Apostolic ministry, and to Tractarian spirituality.
He was particularl vehement in his defense of the apostolic ministry and led the charge against Archbishop d'Arcy's attempts to reconcile Anglicans and Presbyterians in 1934. Later, in 1948, he was also distinctly cool towards the Church of South India Scheme. For Gregg, the integrity of the Apostolic ministry of bishop, priest and deacon was non-negotiable, and he was not ariad to take an unpopular position in order to maintain it.
Gregg was twice considered for English bishoprics. Firstly in 1938 as a serious candidate as successor for Hensley Henson as Bishop of Durham, and less seriously as a candidate for York or Canterbury in 1942 and 1945. It is unlikely that Gregg would have accepted such a promotion, as, after some initial pangs for academic life in Cambridge, he had become so much part and parcel of the Irish Church. However, it also shows the seriousness with which English Churchmen and politicians regarded him.
Gregg finally retired from Armagh in 1958 and was succeed by the well regarded, James McCann of Meath. In 1969 George Simms, another High Churchman with a fascination for literature succeeded to the primacy, and finally managed to liberalize the ceremonial Canons that had caused Gregg so much heartache forty years earlier.
Because of the sober tradition of the Irish Church, Anglo-catholicism there has always been a matter there of belief not ceremonial. This is completely in accord with what the Tractarians believed and taught, but confusing to those who are tempted to mistake the right vestments for the right beliefs. At the end of the day what really matters is what one believes.
The best know exponants of the Tractarian tradition on the Irish bench were Richard Chenevix Trench 1807-1887 (Archbishop of Dublin 1861-1886) and William Alexander 1824-1911 (Derry and Raphoe 1867-1894; Armagh 1894-1910). Both were minor poets, and both had picked up the "high seriousness" of Tractarianism during their times in the English University. Of the two, William Alexander seemed to connect more easily with Irish Clerical life. His ministry at Fahan in Co. Donegal, his happy marriage to hymnodist Cecil Frances Alexander, and sunny nature made him very popular. The more "English" Trench was somewhat disliked in Dublin, where the majority of enthusiastic Churchmen would have preferred an Evangelical. Both worked quietly to broaden the outlooks of their dioceses, though it has to be said that Trench was the more successful in promoting "Church Ideals."
Trench's time in Dublin saw the establishment of three "Anglo-Catholic" parishes - St Bartholomew's, Dublin; and St John's, Sandymount; and to a lesser extent, Christ Church, Leeson Park; which joined All Saints', Grangegorman, as exponants of the Tractarian tradition in Ireland. All three had daily Communion, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer whilst keeping just inside the ceremonial restrictions then current in the Church of Ireland. They maintained the North end position at Holy Communion; lit the altar candles only for the purposes of giving light; but also scheduled Confession. Periodically one of them would "get brave" and challenge the interpretation of the rubrics, but such attempts usually resulted in a case being brought in the Court of the General Synod.
This brings me to the most influential of Irish High Churchmen - John Allan Fitzgerald Gregg (1873-1961) a member of the firm of "Gregg, Son and Grandson, Bishops to the Church of Ireland!" His uncle and grandfather were Evangelicals, but J.A.F. was born and educated in England and picked up Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic ideas both at Bedford School and at Cambridge. However, rather than stay in England and become a "spike," he decided to go to back to his family's native Ireland where he was ordained in the Diocese of Down and Connor, and Dromore. Curacies in Ballymena and Cork ensued, then a spell as Rector of Blackrock 1906-11, then four years as Divinity Professor at TCD before election as Bishop of Ossory, Leighlin and Ferns at the early age of 42. Translation to Dublin followed in 1920; then to Armagh in 1939, where he stayed until his retirement in 1959, aged 85.
One painful aspect of his ministry in Dublin was having to adjudicate the cases brought against two of the High Church parishes in Dublin. The first involved St Bartholomew's, Dublin, where C. B. Moss (yes, that C. B. Moss!) was Curate Assistant, and the second involved St John's, Sandymount. In both cases, Archbishop Gregg upheld the Canons of the Church of Ireland whilst conceeding lesser points to the rectors of the respective churches. Gregg himself thought the Canons too restrictive, but with his respect for law, he was not going to engage in any sort of prophetic activism.
Known to his clergy as "The Marble Arch" Gregg appeared in public to be aloof and self-contained. This was a by-product of the Tractarian seriousness that he absorbed school and university. In private he could be a warm and approachable man - especially in his later years. He was probably at his best when dealing with clergy. Despite his austere appearence and manner, he was often very compassionate with his clergy who experienced difficulties, and he took a great deal of time and effort with his ordinands, as one of my own mentors could testify.
Gregg's variety of High Churchmanship resembled that of Gore and the "Lux Mundi" school. He was prepared to accept the positive contribution of Biblical Scholarship and acknowledge the role of history in shaping the theology and institutions of the church, but was unyielding in his adherence to the Sacraments, to the Apostolic ministry, and to Tractarian spirituality.
He was particularl vehement in his defense of the apostolic ministry and led the charge against Archbishop d'Arcy's attempts to reconcile Anglicans and Presbyterians in 1934. Later, in 1948, he was also distinctly cool towards the Church of South India Scheme. For Gregg, the integrity of the Apostolic ministry of bishop, priest and deacon was non-negotiable, and he was not ariad to take an unpopular position in order to maintain it.
Gregg was twice considered for English bishoprics. Firstly in 1938 as a serious candidate as successor for Hensley Henson as Bishop of Durham, and less seriously as a candidate for York or Canterbury in 1942 and 1945. It is unlikely that Gregg would have accepted such a promotion, as, after some initial pangs for academic life in Cambridge, he had become so much part and parcel of the Irish Church. However, it also shows the seriousness with which English Churchmen and politicians regarded him.
Gregg finally retired from Armagh in 1958 and was succeed by the well regarded, James McCann of Meath. In 1969 George Simms, another High Churchman with a fascination for literature succeeded to the primacy, and finally managed to liberalize the ceremonial Canons that had caused Gregg so much heartache forty years earlier.
Because of the sober tradition of the Irish Church, Anglo-catholicism there has always been a matter there of belief not ceremonial. This is completely in accord with what the Tractarians believed and taught, but confusing to those who are tempted to mistake the right vestments for the right beliefs. At the end of the day what really matters is what one believes.
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.
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